Jones Family Anatomy
by Beguile
Summary: A family's more than blood and bones. The Jones family dynamics post-KotCS written in a variety of styles and lengths. Part 11: Nine months is a small price to pay.
1. Heredity

Disclaimer: The characters and concepts in this story are the property of George Lucas, Stephen Spielberg, and all those fine chaps over at Paramount. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.

Summary: A family's more than blood and bones. The Jones Family dynamics post-KotCS as shown through single shot drabbles and other multi-chapter epics all posted under a single title for your viewing convenience.

Rating: Varies between K+ and T and maybe even M, depending on what I decide to write.

Author's Notes: It has been a very long time since I've written Fanfiction and I hope I still have it in me. Constructive criticism is always appreciated; flames are always ignored. Enjoy!

* * *

Jones Family Anatomy

-Heredity-

Henry 'Mutt' Jones kept his back pressed tightly against the wall, hands clenched tightly at his sides. The dark of the hall swirled around him, illuminated only slightly by the soft light cascading from a nearby doorway. He was only several feet away from the freedom, able to see the edge of the stairway from where he was standing. The pitch blackness on the floor below him was as good an indicator as any that he was close to the exit. He just had to make it there without being detected, a task easier said than done in this place.

Easing himself to the wall's edge, he peeked around the corner to the small alcove nearby. The door was only open a crack, barely enough to see through, but enough for anyone with ears to hear through. He took a deep breath, taking special care not to make any sound as he did so for fear someone might hear, and, holding it, stepped quickly past the alcove to the safety of the far wall.

Footsteps thudded across the floor in his direction. Mutt's heart nearly jumped out of his chest when he heard them reach the threshold of the room, inching into the small nook. He shut his mouth tight and waited, trying to keep his anxiety under wraps. Panicking wouldn't do him any good, not when he was so close, _so close_, to escape. For what felt like an eternity, he waited, holding his breath inside his lungs as his heart pounded against his rib. He could see the person clearly in his mind, hovering by the door, listening just as intently as he for any sound.

_Except he's not going to hear anything_, Mutt decided, setting his jaw sternly. _I'm getting out of here whether he likes it or not_.

_If that's him_, a voice inside his head reminded him, but Mutt ignored it. Of course it was him. Mutt had seen him go inside that room over an hour ago and hadn't seen or heard him leave since.

The door clicked shut suddenly, leaving Mutt alone in the darkness. He breathed a soft, almost silent sigh of relief and pressed on, strafing down the wall several inches before taking small steps to the staircase.

He took another deep breath and tried to remember where the silent parts on the stairs were. That was the one problem with old buildings, he decided. The architecture blew your cover way before you did. Luckily, he had spent the better part of his time inside memorizing where to step and how to move without making a sound. After taking a moment to recall the spots that didn't creak, he crept downwards, making his way through the pitch blackness without so much as a whisper of his breath.

The solid floor was a welcome blessing. _Just a few more steps_, he told himself, barely containing his excitement. He could almost see the outline of the door in front of him; smell the fresh air waiting for him on the other side as he raced through the night on the back of his Harley. Keeping a hand pressed against the wall for support and navigation, he took a brave step forward onto uncertain ground, wincing in fear of a squeaky floorboard he hadn't cared to notice before. Working as quickly as he could without blowing his cover, Mutt covered the last of the distance between himself and the door and, when he finally found the handle, breathed the real sigh of relief.

"Finally," Mutt whispered. He twisted the handle and pulled.

The door hadn't swung more than a few inches before it stopped short in the dark.

"Don't even think about it," a voice warned him in the darkness.

The door slammed shut. The lights came on. Mutt took a dejected step back into the foyer of the house and sighed. The image of the night was burning in his brain, fuelled by a fury he knew he could never satisfy. Lifting his eyes from the carpet, he met the gaze of his captor with a sharp glare.

"You know I almost had you."

The former Henry Jones Jr. didn't move a muscle, but Mutt could feel the eye roll from where he was standing. "You didn't have anything," the elder Jones corrected his son pointedly. "I've been waiting for you to get down here for half an hour. Now, get out of that jacket and get back to your room."

* * *

Well, I hope you enjoyed that. Till next time, readers, tah!


	2. Stomach

Disclaimer: The characters and concepts of this story are the property of Stephen Speilberg, George Lucas, and their wonderful affiliates at Lucasfilm and Paramount. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.

Summary: A family's more than blood and bones.

Author's Notes: Wow – I'm overwhelmed by the response. Thank you so much for your kind reviews. I hope this chapter is as satisfying as the first. I did as much research as I could about the history, but try as I might, I couldn't figure out what the 1956 remedy was for the stomach flu, so I just assumed that it was, for the most part, the same as today. I apologize for any historical inaccuracy. Constructive criticism is appreciated; flames are ignored. Enjoy!

* * *

-Stomach-

"You know, mom, I really don't think I feel very well."

That was an understatement, Marion noted, as she pulled her hand from her son's damp forehead. It didn't take a medical degree or a thermometer to tell her that he was telling the truth. Add the near-burning body temperature to his red rimmed eyes, flushed cheeks, and increasingly candid disposition and she had one sick young man on her hands.

She patted the pillows on his bed, urging him to lie down again. Mutt complied without argument, another worrisome sign. Everything she said seemed to be met with resistance ever since he was a child. It was one of the Jones' more annoying genetic traits. Yet now he was like putty in her hands, willing to be molded into whatever form she chose.

And right now she was molding him back into bed.

She took advantage of the moment and placed a soft kiss on his forehead. Even in his fevered state, her son grimaced at the sign of affection. _But he accepted it_, Marion thought with a sad smile. It took a fever to make him her little boy again. What did that say about their dynamic?

"Lie still," she said softly, patting him on the shoulder. "I'll get you some water and aspirin."

Her little boy – she was allowed to call him that when he was sick – gave a tortured moan and immediately curled up on his side into a protective ball. Marion sighed. _Never could stay still for long, could you, Pup?_ She ruffled his hair teasingly and slid out into the hall before her son could even muster a groan.

Turning from the door, Marion was surprised to find her husband standing close by. Henry Jones Sr. was locked in a fierce battle with his tie, but he somehow managed to direct a stern gaze to his son's bedroom door.

"Is he up?"

Marion hung her head a little. "He's sick."

"He's faking."

"No, I'm afraid it's quite genuine," she swatted his hands away from the tie at his throat and took over, shaking her head slightly as she did so. Henry had started tying at least three different knots in the thing, none of them the right ones. With a slight toss of her hair, Marion began the process of detangling the garment. "I know a sick Jones when I see one."

"I'll hide the mirrors," he said, turning back towards the bedroom. Marion gave his tie a tug to keep him still and continued with her task, finally putting the thing right.

Henry watched her as she did so, stomach churning. He was suddenly, very acutely aware that they were married, and that the game of house they had seemingly been playing for the past few months was real life, not make believe. Marion Ravenwood was his wife, he was her husband, and baby makes three. All they needed now was a station wagon and get the baby some proper clothes and a haircut; then they really would be the Joneses.

"What?" Marion asked.

He smiled at her. "I love you."

"I love you," she replied, smiling up at him.

They leaned in together, imagining a place outside of the suburbs where the sun was setting over the desert. The hot wind swept around them under the red sky, dry and coarse and grainy. Marion was in that silken gown, sidling her slender frame against his as her dark curls blew wildly around them. They were young and in love again, and when they kissed it always felt like the first time, even when they were worlds away from their younger years.

They were so lost in their embrace they barely noticed when Mutt's bedroom door swung open, leaving the disheveled youth staring at his lip-locked parents.

Marion and Henry snapped from their reverie and looked towards Mutt. He made a disgusted, disgusting sound in the back of his through.

"Ugh," he swallowed thickly, "Now I really am gonna be sick."

And on that note, he staggered past them towards the bathroom at the end of the hall. No sooner had he disappeared inside than his heavy frame struck the floor and loud retching sounds echoed from within.

"That makes two of us," Henry Sr. commented dryly. He slid an arm around his wife and walked with her to the bathroom door.

"I told you he wasn't faking," she said.

* * *

Halfway through losing the rest of his stomach contents and collapsing against the bathroom wall, Mutt decided that life was officially crap. He had been fine the night before, better than fine actually. How he managed to come down with the mother of all stomach flus in twelve hours or less was beyond him.

He curled his body as best he could between the wall and the toilet to ease the tension on his stomach muscles. He could still feel them quivering against his thighs, itching to tighten again and force him into dry heaves. The rank smell of vomit wafting from the open toilet sent bile rising into his throat, thick, sweet, and sour in the same miserable instant. Mutt raised a shaking hand and flushed the toilet before bringing his head to rest against his knees. He could have fallen asleep right then and there and think nothing of it; just pass out for a full six months or so, waking only when he didn't have to face the humiliation of vomiting again.

Time passed in slow, dark increments. The floor felt like it was sinking; the room felt like it was spinning. He thought he had fallen into some hidden void and was now lost forever, when he suddenly felt something cool and damp pressed against the back of his neck. Soft fingers stroked the back of his head lovingly, tenderly, working out the stiffness in his muscles and easing some of the tension from his body.

It felt good, almost too good. How long had it been since he actually let someone touch his head?

The moment passed the second the hand gave his hair an affectionate ruffle. Mutt immediately shied away.

"Don't touch my hair."

Except it came out as more of a moan than a statement. Marion got the point though, and moved to the bathroom sink to fill a glass of water.

"You doing all right?" his father asked from the doorway.

"Just perfect," Mutt replied glumly.

"Yeah, you look it," there was just as much sarcasm in Henry Sr.'s voice as his son's. He turned to his wife. "We should take him to the doctor."

"No way," the younger Jones said, lifting his head. No matter how nauseous the action made him, nothing gave him more fighting spirit than the thought of professional medical attention. "No doctor."

"He's had all his shots," Marion said. "It's probably just a mild case of the flu. Bed rest, liquids, and aspirin are the best they can do."

Mutt stared between his parents. "And even if it wasn't, it wouldn't matter, because I wouldn't go."

"Yeah, because you're in a position to argue."

"You intend to drag me there kicking and screaming, pops? 'Cuz I was an only child. I can throw a tantrum like you wouldn't believe."

Henry shot a skeptical look at his wife. Marion gave a slight nod, indicating that Mutt had a point.

"This could get worse," Henry interjected.

"Do I have to spell it out for you? I'm," Mutt pointed to himself for emphasis, "Not," he waved his hands wildly, "Going."

He made a final, rolling motion and dropped his head back into his knees.

Henry was about to put forth another argument when Marion placed a restraining hand on his shoulder. "This is the last thing he needs right now."

"We should take him to a hospital."

"And we will," she assured him, "But we'll give him a few hours to fight this off on his own. If he hasn't improved in a few hours, I'll take him in."

"This could be serious."

"But it isn't right now, so we'll make do. Now," she patted his shoulder blade, "You have to get to work and you, mister, have to get back to bed."

"Give me a minute," he said, "The room's spinning and I'm ready to lose half my internal organs to heaves."

Henry looked back at his wife. "Maybe I should take the day off."

"You have a faculty meeting."

"How do you know about that?"

"I'm Clarissa Dalloway now, remember?" she smiled one of her Mona Lisa smiles. "I have to know these things."

"I'll tell them I'm sick."

"We'll be fine, Indy."

"He's our son. You shouldn't have to be the only one taking care of him."

"This is hardly the first time I've played nurse maid to him."

"Things are different now."

"I'll be fine with him."

"I should stay and help."

"You should go – you'll hit traffic."

"I could call."

"You'll do no such thing."

"What are you gonna do to stop me?"

"I'm gonna wipe that smirk off your face, Mr. Associate-Dean ," she threatened idly with two pats on his chest. "Now go."

He pecked her on the lips quickly, and then leaned over to his son sitting on the floor. "You okay, kid?"

"I'll live," Mutt moaned. "Have a good day."

"You too. Be good to your mother," he returned to his wife's side. "Call me if anything changes."

"Gee, I was thinking ambulance first, but if you want me to interrupt the chain of command…"

He kissed her again and Marion smiled. "I'll call. Now go."

Indy's voice deepened one last time when he looked at her. "I love you."

Marion rolled her eyes. "I love you too."

"And I've officially lost the will to live," Mutt said, leaning forward as the heaves started again. "Thanks mom, pops – you guys are the greatest."


	3. Lacrimal Gland

Disclaimer: The characters and concepts in this set of stories are the property of Stephen Spielberg and George Lucas and their marvelous affiliates at Lucasfilm and Paramount. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.

Summary: A family's more than blood and bones. A continuation from 'Stomach': Mutt asks a hard question.

Author's Notes: Hey all - there seems to be a little confusion about this chapter. I wrote this in response to what I feel is a little bit of an unresolved issue between Mutt and Colin Williams. Yes, Indy is his biological father, but Mutt spent almost twenty years of his life believing Colin was his father instead. For the sake of time and the context, the obvious tension that would exist when Mutt discovered Colin wasn't his father was neglected in the movie, so I wanted to delve a little more into that. I can't remember correctly how old Mutt would have been when Colin died, so this may be a little AU, but I've been playing with their relationship in other works and this sort of popped out. Enjoy!

Oh, and 'Lacrimal' is just a really fancy word for 'tear'.

* * *

-Lacrimal Gland-

"You're shivering."

"…'m cold."

"You're burning up," Marion corrected him, and drew the wet cloth across his face again. When he tried to shy away, she slid her hand across the back of his head and held him steady.

He opened his eyes and looked at her, really looked at her. Marion was so completely engrossed in the task of bathing his face she gave no indication that she noticed his attention.

"Mom?" he asked.

"Yeah?"

"Do you still miss dad?"

It took her a moment to realize who he was talking about. When she did, Marion sighed. Trust her son to ask the hardest questions when he was sick.

"Sometimes," she replied quietly, looking slightly away from him. Tears were collecting on the edge of her vision and she took a moment to get her emotions in check. When she looked back at her son, he didn't seem to notice any difference. She began again, "Yes, sometimes…I still miss him very much."

Mutt swallowed hard, seeming to stare right through her. "And that's," he said, but the words got caught in his throat. "That's uh…that's okay, right? To miss him? You know, even though he wasn't my real dad and Indiana…Henry, he's great, and you're happy and safe, and I'm happy because you're happy and because I like Indiana…Henry…it's still okay to miss dad though, right?"

Marion didn't miss a single beat. She placed her hand on her son's cheek and drew circles down his nose and across his eyelids. She leaned down and kissed his brow and kissed his temple, leaning her cheek against his forehead as she did so and allowing her hands to slide in soothing strokes down his neck, shoulders, and spine.

Mutt breathed. It was all he could do to keep from screaming. He wanted to sob, but caught himself, forcing his cries back into his body with such ferocity his stomach ached and reeled from the bitter taste of his own remorse. He tried to pitch himself forward, but he couldn't pull away from his mother, never pull away from his mother. She was the one truth in all this, the one constant, the one unmovable, unshakeable presence in his life. Yet all the while, something inside was breaking, something wrought in iron and stone he built so long ago he never realized it existed until Indiana came into his life.

She was practically holding him now, one hand hung over his side to his spine, rubbing against his lower back in a way that his muscles loosened all over. He couldn't stay tense, couldn't stay mad, and without either of those, there was only sadness.

And that's when the tears started running hot and sticky down his cheeks.

Marion pretended not to notice. She felt him tense again as if he were fearful of what she, his own mother, might see when she looked at him. So she didn't look. She drew his quivering body to her with an ease only a mother could manage and held him steady as he wept in absolute silence into her shoulder.

When he quieted, Marion placed another kiss on his brow and leaned in close to his ear. Her words came out soft as breath, but held more weight to them than anything she might have said out loud.

"It is always okay for you to miss people," she said, "Always. And it is perfectly alright for you to miss your father no matter how happy or sad you are with the new one you've got."

"And you don't think…"

"Henry," she stopped him, staring him dead in the eye. At first he thought she might start screaming, but her voice came out as exasperated and defeated as his had. "He was your father."


	4. Skin

Disclaimer: The characters and concepts in this story are the property of Stephen Spielberg, George Lucas, and their fabulous affiliates at Lucasfilm and Paramount. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.

Summary: A family's more than blood and bones. Part Four: Indy faces his fears and prepares Mutt to face his in the process.

Author's Notes: As per Geolina Bartilonee's suggestion that I write more Indy/Mutt, I have prepared this chapter. I hope I did some justice to the good doctor. He's a hard guy to write for!

* * *

-Skin-

"Dad?"

Henry Jones Sr. looked up from the papers he was reading as he entered his bedroom towards his son's bedroom door. Mutt peered out through the smallest crack he could manage expectantly in his father's direction, looking more than a little nervous the whole while.

"Do you think you could come here a minute?" Mutt asked. "I uh…I need a little….help, you know, with something."

"You're sure this isn't something you should ask your mother about?"

Mutt groaned and rolled his eyes. "Would you just get in here? Geez…" He popped his head back in the room and shut the door.

"Touchy," Henry mumbled. He set his papers on the bureau in the bedroom and walked to his son's room, more out of curiosity than benevolence. After asking to borrow the car that morning, Mutt had been elusive all day, hiding between his bedroom and the bathroom, presence punctuated only by a hissed curse or muttered expletive.

"Mutt?" he asked as he reached the door and stepped inside. "You ask me anything about the birds and the bees and you are so grounded…"

Henry rounded around the door and stopped dead. Of all the things he was expecting, all the awkward heart-to-hearts he had never dared ask his own father about and all the things he had ever faced before from huge boulders to Nazis to snakes, he could never have prepared himself for this. There, no more than twenty feet from him was his own son, though every inch of him, including his hair, of all things, was completely unrecognizable. He was wearing a dark gray suit with a light gray dress shirt, buttoned most unbelievably all the way up to his throat and (even more unbelievably) tucked in. His hair was no longer styled in that ridiculous wave along his scalp, but rather combed back and parted down one side. He was wearing a pair of unmarked dress shoes polished until Henry saw the clutter around the room reflected in them and intended to top everything off, or so the elder Jones assumed, with the charcoal hat resting on the bureau next to him.

The elder Jones's heart skipped a beat. That couldn't be his son. Mutt was probably hiding in the bathroom reading the dirty magazines Marion and Henry Sr. weren't supposed to know about (but did). This imposter in his bedroom was had wandered in with car trouble to use the phone and got horribly, horribly lost. Yes, that sounded much more plausible than the notion that it was Mutt in that get-up. Mutt, whose definition of formal dress was whatever had the least about of oil stains, would never have been caught dead looking that good.

There was just one thing missing, of course, which Henry Sr. assumed was the reason he had been called in. Mutt was gripping a charcoal tie in his hands dejectedly, trying to distance himself from the garment as much as possible. _What, this? Not mine. I'm just holding it for something else_.

"Mom makes it look easy," the younger Jones shrugged, not quite meeting his father's gaze. "I kind of figured I could take care of it."

"It's harder than it looks," Henry said, trying to match his son's demeanor but failing miserably. The whole scene was just too much for him, almost overwhelming for the good doctor Jones. Boulders, Nazis, Russians, and snakes all mixed together would seem smaller than seeing his son, his still very young son, all dressed up like he was a man.

"Where'd you get the suit?"

"Oh, its second hand," the younger man blushed crimson. "I had it dry cleaned though, so it looks fairly new."

Swallowing the growing lump in his throat, Henry Sr. set his jaw and walked towards Mutt on the other side of the room. He rubbed his hands on his pants, trying to keep his anxiety in check. This wasn't really all that difficult. Tying a tie – simple, routine, safe; and yet, Henry still felt like he was lying to himself. This was big. This was huge. This was monumental. He was making history here with his son.

His son. _HIS_ son. He was amazed at how one little pronoun changed everything. Routine became ritual; seemingly innocuous objects were wrapped up in layers and layers of symbolism and emotion. You were tying a tie, but you were really imparting an ancient wisdom that your father had passed on to you and his father had passed onto him and so on and so forth. Tying a tie was touching the divine, communing with a higher power, achieving something…intimate.

Henry suppressed a shiver. The word had never sat well with him, not with women and certainly not with men. The relationship he maintained with his father had never even come close to possessing the term, not until the end anyways. How was he expected to impart that here? His father had trouble relating to a son he had known his entire life. How could he possibly do it with a son he had only met a few months ago?

He took the tie in his hands and eased it over his son's (_that word again…damn!_) head and bring it to rest at the base of the shirt collar. He reached shakily towards the collar but hesitated, unable to cross that strange barrier that seemed to exist between them.

"You have to…"

"What?"

"Um…"

"Just uh…"

The two men shifted uncomfortably on their heels. Henry clenched his teeth and covered the last few inches hanging between his hands and his son's neck.

He flipped up the collar.

_Nothing to it,_ he thought with a soft sigh. Gripping the tie again with both hands, he continued.

"Do you want a half-Windsor or Windsor knot?"

Mutt made a face as if someone had just struck him. "Um…" he reached up to scratch his head but remembered the tenuous hold styling products currently had on his hair and dropped the limb back to his side. "Whichever one's better?"

"Where are you going?"

"To dinner," he said, straightening uncomfortably, "With a girl." He admitted it quietly, flippantly, like the comment belonged to somebody else, the same somebody who owned the suit, the tie, and the hat. "It's her birthday. I promised her somewhere nice…formal."

The word gave sent a sickening shiver down the young man's spine. Henry sympathized.

"Half-Windsor should be fine."

"What's the difference?"

Henry gave a small chuckle as he pulled the tie to the appropriately lengths on either side. "You know, kid? I have no idea. One takes longer." He straightened and showed Mutt the tie. "Okay...the wide side should always be longer than the thin one."

"Wide side longer than the thin one," Mutt repeated breathlessly. He was pretending he was somewhere else, Indy could tell. He knew the expression from the one he often saw in the mirror.

"Wrap it around…" he instructed, making sure the twist he had created was seamless. Then he lifted the wider side up and pulled it through the loop he had just created. His fingertips brushed the soft area at Mutt's throat and nearly sent him reeling. _Focus, old man_, he commanded himself.

"Don't uh…don't make it too tight here."

"Okay…"

"I always made that mistake."

"Keep it loose," Mutt shook his limbs free of the tension growing within them. "Got it."

"Then you…wrap it around again, and uh…pull it up and through here."

_Right past his neck again…_Henry suppressed a wince as he drew his hand past Mutt's Adam's apple. His son (a real wince this time) lifted his head out of the way, but that didn't stop Henry's fingertips from just lightly skimming his flesh.

"So…" Henry pulled the tie through and quickly changed the subject. "Who's the girl?"

"She's…uh…from my comparative literature class," he lifted his hand to his hair as if to comb it again but let it fall back to his side a second later. "We've seen each other a couple of times. She lives a few blocks away."

"Make sure it stays straight at this part." Henry tucked the tip of the tie into the loop. "She got a name?"

"Chloe," he replied. "She's…"

Henry didn't quite know why Mutt had cut off so inexplicably mid-sentence. He took the liberty of filling in the rest of the sentence for him. "Nice?"

Mutt shook his head. "Different."

"Different," Henry repeated, just to make sure he was understanding, which he wasn't.

The young man clarified. "I don't usually go for girls like her. Of course, girls like her don't usually go for guys like me."

"What's she like?"

"Like…different, you know? She's smart. She knows all this stuff about history and art. Oh, and she reads, like, _actually reads_. Not fashion magazines or romance novels, but books. And she's funny and ambitious and pretty and shit, what the hell am I doing? I don't know the first thing about girls like her."

"Hey, hey," Henry gave the tie a small tug to keep Mutt from fidgeting.

"Oh just forget it. I should just cancel this whole thing."

"Hey! Easy tiger," the elder Jones gave his son a little nudge with his hands to steady him. Mutt was about ready to make a run for the border and never come back. "Don't come this far and walk away now."

"Well it's true."

"Well, fine, but that doesn't mean you run away from it. That makes a worse impression than a bad first date." _I know from experience_. Henry took a deep breath. "Fundamentally, women are all the same. Compliment her shoes – a fifteen minute conversation at best, her jewelry – ten if it's new, thirty if it's an heirloom, and her clothes, then move onto all the dreams, hopes, and aspirations stuff."

Mutt raised a brow. "Just how many Marions were there, pops?"

"Enough," he replied curtly. _That's as far as that conversation goes_. "Besides," he adjusted the tie a little to get a better angle and started correcting some of the mistakes Mutt's fidgeting had caused, "The Jones family has never had anything but luck in that department. My grandfather was so nervous he pushed my grandmother down the stairs and broke her arm. They were married sixty years. My father," Indy shook his head, "My father spent the whole night with my mother talking about the Holy Grail."

"The Holy Grail?"

"He had a thing," Indy said. "They were married within a few months."

Mutt nodded understandingly. "And then there's you."

"Yeah, then there's me," the words came out as more of a growl. "I leave your mother at the alter and manage to find her again in Peru."

The younger Jones continued nodding. "So basically, I can maim this girl, ignore her, and ditch her, and we'll still be married by '59?"

Henry's eyes narrowed menacingly and he pulled the tie a little tighter. "I'm saying no one gets it right the first time. You're going to screw up. You're going to say something stupid or do something stupid. But the true measure of a man, the thing that really matters, is never how he starts things. It's the way he learns from them, grows from them, and ends them that make you the man you want to be with the woman you want to be with."

The threshold had been breached. The line had been crossed. In that instant, the distance seemed to close between father and son. Mutt seemed to fill the suit now. He stood a little straighter and held his chin a little higher, staring into Henry's eyes with a bold sense of determination and an unspoken wish to become even half the man his father had become.

"Now," Henry Sr. pinched the tie between his fingers. "Hold your hand there to make a loop and pull the end through."

Mutt looked down and watched from the corner of his eyes. His father's fingers curled around the smooth fabric of the tie and pulled it tight, pulled it straight, and held it there before his son's eyes so the young man could learn for himself.

"Oh," the elder reached up to the knot, "Always make sure there are two creases at the top of the tie."

"Why?"

"Because that's how your mother does it," Henry set the tie down against his son's chest and took a step back. Mutt ran his hands over the tie a couple of times, memorizing the feel of it against his fingers and the steps his father had just shown him. When he had finished admiring it, he pulled the garment flush against his throat and flipped the collar of his shirt back over. He grabbed the jacket from the back of his chair and pulled it on, mimicking the sharp, sure movements from the serials he had seen in the movies.

Henry wore the ghost of a smile on his face as he watched the scene. _My son_, he thought, and laughed lightly. _MY_ _son_.

"Well," Mutt said, "How do I look?"

Indiana reached past the younger man to the bureau and picked up the gray fedora. Ignoring the irony, he perfected the notch in the top of the hat and set it on his son's head with a grin.

"You look ready."


	5. Lungs

Disclaimer: The characters and concepts in this story are the property of Stephen Spielberg, George Lucas, and all their wonderful affiliates at Paramount and Lucasfilm who made the _Indiana Jones_ movies so awesome. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.

Summary: A family's more than blood and bones. Part Five: Sometimes there's just not enough air.

Author's Notes: After last chapter, I decided to switch gears a bit and play with Marion and Indy for a while. I've changed the style for this one, so I hope it works. Enjoy!

* * *

-Lungs-

Sometimes there's just not enough air.

He knows this from experience: sometimes there literally hasn't been enough air in the world to breathe. He's been trapped in stone rooms with river water rushing in, face shoved as close as it will go against the ceiling to get just one more breath, one more breath.

Right now, though, he knows the expression is figurative. He has enough air around him to keep him alive for however many decades he has left. The problem is that he can't get to it. He's a starving man surrounded by food, suffocating even though there's plenty around him to breathe.

She doesn't notice. How could she? She's worlds away in her kitchen beyond, through the white washed archway of the dining room, another universe unto itself. He can see her silhouette in the bright sunshine streaming through the window, a mess of contradictions: raven hair falls loosely about her alabaster shoulders; dark lashes fluttered above the whites of her eyes; pale hands clutching a dark green dish cloth. She is heaven and hell, god and devil, angel and demon; she is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end, his very reason for breathing and the very reason he can't breathe.

She lowers her hands into the dish water, white suds rising against her whiter elbows, as she reaches blindly under the murky depths. He imagines her slender fingers fumbling, slipping across the metal surfaces of the sink, searching for something she knows is there but not quite finding it or losing it when she does. He imagines her brow furrowing, her eyes narrowing, her mind focusing. He imagines her stretching, fingers splayed, palm open, patting down the edges of the sink for the missing piece of silverware. Nevertheless, her eyes never leave the window. She doesn't need her eyes for something she knows is there.

At last, she captures it. He can see her fingers curling around it under the crystalline surface of the water, white on silver, light against shadow. She lifts it just to the surface and runs the cloth over it, pinching the cloth over its edges, scrubbing away the grime to reveal the shimmering surface of silver or porcelain underneath. She lowers it to rinse, then lifts it again and scrubs harder. He can see her eyes narrow now. They've turned away from the sunlight and the dark lashes have curled over like parasols, blocking the offending image from view in lieu of her intense concentration. She can see past them, she always could; beyond the shade there was always something greater for Marion Ravenwood, and she trained herself from an early age to always look at that, focus on that; focus on the stars to land in the heavens. She doesn't see the grime on the dish nor the soap she uses to scrub it loose: she's looking at the dish, the plate or the knife or the spoon or whatever. She's seeing it for what it will be, what it should be, not for the way it is.

He inhales, but still feels short of breath. His chest is heavy, his throat is tight. He should get back to work, but he can't pull his eyes from the kitchen, can't pull his eyes, can't catch his breath.

She straightens. The movement is like a symphony. Every part of her is working in perfect harmony, tendons pulling muscle pulling bone pulling her pulling him. He sees beneath her clothing, beneath her flesh, beneath her bone, beneath her marrow, all the way to the fine lines of her soul as they twist and curve around her and within her, drawn into her orbit like the air from the room.

He breathes, but doesn't. He can't help the action but wishes he could. He feels winded. He feels weak. He feels lost.

Her foot rises, lifts the wide hem of her pants up, up, up, over her creamy white calf; up, up, up over her knee. She slides her bare toes along her flesh, rubbing away some itch. Her head leans back in pure ecstasy, pure bliss. Chestnut spirals spill over her back and he catches the briefest of glimpses of her face in the sunlight, white and pure and gleaming like heaven itself were reaching down to touch her.

He can't breathe anymore. He's trapped. He's suffocating. The waters are rising around him, past his mouth, past his nose, past his eyes, past his head, and he's sinking like a stone into her, that endless white and black of her. He can feel her fingers groping through the darkness and the light, feel her hands slipping tenuously over his skin as he takes his first hot breath of liquid, then another and another until all there is is that image of her in the window, that white-black Marion, hands in the sink water, reaching for him, but never letting him reach the surface.

Porcelain strikes metal. He blinks. The plate she was cleaning sits in the dish rack to her left, dripping with soap suds and water. He breathes a sigh and looks back at his work, but only sees her in his mind, only tastes her in his mouth, only feels her in his heart.

He lifts his gaze and inhales.

Sometimes there's just not enough air.


	6. Liver

Disclaimer: The characters and concepts in this story are the property of Stephen Spielberg, George Lucas, and their fabulous associates at Lucasfilm and Paramount. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.

Summary: A family's more than blood and bones. Part 6: Mutt runs away. Chaos ensues.

Author's Notes: This is a response to Fiona12690's challenge in _It Haunts_. It's not exactly the format she was looking for (I believe Mutt had to be cold and on the street), but this was the first thing that popped into my head and, try as I might to write something different, the visions of plot bunnies were clogging in my skull, urging me to finish this. It's the longest chapter so far. Enjoy!

Today's anatomy lesson has been brought to you by the liver, a handy little organ located just below your diaphragm. A secretor of bile, the liver assists in the emulsification of lipids or fat, and is particularly concerned with the removal of alcohol in the bloodstream. More importantly, the liver as implicated as the cause for a choleric temperament, as cholerics were known to have an excess of black bile in their bodies which makes them ambitious and passionate, but bad-tempered. I think you can tell where I'm going with this now, so, without further ado…

* * *

-Liver-

The phone started ringing just as Marion reentered the house. Forsaking her shoes, coat, and umbrella, she made a mad dash across the hardwood floor, skidded to an unstable halt, and snatched the phone from the receiver.

"Mutt?"

"No, Marion, but I found him. He's with me."

"Oh, thank God," she sank onto the arm of the couch, breathing deeply. "Where are you?"

"That's a…" he gave a mirthless chuckle. "That's a bit of a funny story, Marion."

Her brow furrowed. "Jones?" she asked, suddenly very concerned. "Jones, where are you?"

"We're at Crossgate," he replied.

_Crossgate_, Marion thought. She had never heard of that place before, unless…

"Jones," her voice grew louder the longer she stayed on the phone with him. "Please tell me you're joking."

"Oh, honey, I wish I were."

"JESUS, JONES! YOU'RE IN PRISON!?"

It took him a moment to answer. She assumed he was holding the phone away from his ear for a second.

"Technically, Marion, it's a jail."

"I DON'T CARE IF IT'S THE GOD DAMN CHURCH, JONES, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TWO DOING IN A JAIL?!"

"Look, Marion, this is kind of a long story…"

"KIND OF!?"

"…and they don't exactly give me a long time on the phone here, so why don't you come down and we talk about this like adults."

"Come down there? You shouldn't even be in there! Oh, I should just leave you in there to rot!"

"But you won't, will you?" the line went dead. "Marion? Marion?!"

* * *

Crossgate Jail was situated directly next to the Police station on Portage Street South, a good half an hour drive from the Jones's home in the country. How Marion made the trip in less than fifteen minutes, God only really knows. All she knew was that it wasn't fast enough. She wanted to know what was going on, what had been going on. For the past three hours, she had been running around like a mad woman looking for her missing son, and now her husband was telling her that they were in jail.

"Well, I hope you're having a wonderful time," she muttered, and leapt out of the vehicle.

Marion marched into Crossgate like she owned the place, straight up to the front desk. The lone officer sitting there visibly and audibly gulped upon seeing her.

"C-c-can I help you?" he asked. Obviously, he'd never seen hellfire in someone's eyes before.

"Henry Jones," she said, "Where is he?"

"You're Jones's wife?"

She shot a glance at the well-built detective hovering off to the side, cup of coffee in one hand, case file in the other.

"Not for much longer at this rate," she replied. "Where is he?"

"You wanna pay bail?" the officer at the desk asked.

"If I wanted to pay bail, I would have asked you that in the first place," Marion tossed her hair back over her shoulder. "I want to talk to my husband."

The detective grinned. "I'll take her back, Tom."

"_Alone_," she almost growled.

"I wouldn't dare think of intruding," the detective raised his hands in mock defense. "Open the gate, Tom."

There was a loud metallic buzz and the doors to her right unlocked. Marion waltzed towards them, swung them open, and slid behind them in one swift movement, nearly knocking over the detective in the process.

"Did he tell you what he was brought in for?"

"He told me it was a long story."

"It's not – he and kid got into a brawl at a local dive."

Marion tightened her hands into fists. _Jones_, she growled. _I am going to strangle you_, a_nd I swear I'm going to enjoy it. And after I'm done with you, I'm going to start with that stubborn, idiot son of mine_.

The detective held the door at the end of the hall open for her. "Just knock when you're ready to leave," he said.

Marion smiled curtly and stepped past him. "You might be here a while," she replied.

* * *

Henry and Mutt were in the first cell, a good distance from the louder, rowdier cells down the corridor. The elder Jones was pacing in the front of the cell closest to the bars while the delinquent younger was slouched on the bench in the back as if he was asleep. Marion suppressed an eye roll. _Only Mutt_, she thought, and strode up to the bars.

Her husband looked up and rushed towards her. "Marion…"

"One word out of you, Jones, that doesn't explain to me why you're here and I swear I'll leave you in here overnight."

"Mom?"

She cast a look around her husband. Mutt was looking up in the back of the cell, brow furrowed in confusion and eyes squinting in the dim light. Marion gave a sigh of relief for the first time that evening. _My boy…_

"MOM!" Mutt said happily. He raised his hand in a large, exaggerated wave. "Hey mom!"

All the sentimentality of the moment was lost in an instant. Marion's face solidified into an expression of pure, unadulterated evil.

She turned the expression on her husband. "Is he drunk?"

"That's…"

"A funny story?"

He scratched the back of his head sheepishly. "Yeah…"

Marion's glare sharpened. "I'm not laughing, Jones."

"If it makes you feel any better, he was halfway there when I found him."

"So you decided to take him the rest of the way?!"

"Heck yes he did, mom!" Mutt rose from his seat unsteadily, only to fall back a second later, rethinking the decision to move. He didn't rethink his decision to speak though, much to his father's apparent chagrin. "We were drinking, we were bonding…we're like father and son now! Like real father and son!"

"Charming," she told him with a smile, then turned the evil eye back on Henry. "You want to start from the beginning?"

"Are you gonna listen?"

"Oh, trust me darling," she smiled a smile laced with so much venom Henry felt liquid nitrogen flood his veins. "I'm all ears for this one."

The silence that followed was so thick Henry could feel it. He opened his mouth to speak when a shrill laugh filled the cell.

"Uh oh, dad – she's giving you the evil eye."

"Shut up, kid."

"Hey don't tell me to shut up!" Mutt sprang to his feet. "I still owe you an ass-kicking, pops."

"Mutt, sit down before you fall down," Marion told him. Shockingly, Mutt did as she asked, but with a look of such petulance on his face he looked eight instead of eighteen. She looked back at her husband. "You were saying?"

Henry scratched his head again. "Well, I uh…lets see. I found him at the Alcove about an hour ago."

"And you didn't call me because, you what? You were too busy helping our son finish another bottle or seven of bourbon?"  
"Hey! I told you he was halfway there when I found him," Henry snapped. "He had been hustling pool tables. Several of the men and one of the women were buying him round after round just to get him to lose."

He mentioned that last bit with a certain amount of pride, Marion was certain, and though she couldn't deny that Mutt's talents made her beam as a parent, having his father get him intoxicated and imprisoned were not things a mother could be proud of.

"Continue," Marion urged. _Let him finish_, she decided. _Then kill him_.

"We argued," Henry told her, still scratching his head. "We argued for a while, actually."

"I said he wasn't my father," Mutt informed his mother, wearing the statement like a badge of honour. "He said I was a poor excuse for a son."

Henry could feel the kid grinning behind him. "Thank you, Mutt," he said through clenched teeth.

"No problem, pops! I got your back, remember?" Mutt was mock boxing now in the background. "We showed those jerks what we were made of."

"So you bickered," Marion said, trying to direct the conversation, "How did your bickering turn into a bar fight?"

"When it turned into several more rounds of pool," Henry said, hanging his head in shame. "He told me he wasn't coming home, that he was grown up enough to be on his own; I told him being on his own didn't make him a man, and then…"

"And then you two started drinking," Marion guessed, and rolled her eyes again. "And when Mutt starts to drink, he starts to run his mouth."

"He doesn't start anything," Henry told her.

"I finish it!" Mutt declared, punching his right fist into his left palm.

"What did he say?"

Henry gave a light laugh, and then noticed the homicidal expression on his wife's face and smartened right up. "Something," he swallowed, "Wholly disparaging, horribly insulting, unworthy of repetition, and not humourous in any way, shape, or form."

"Uh huh," Marion nodded. "And I assume this is how the fight started? Because Mutt ran his mouth and it 'wasn't' humourous."

The elder Jones nodded. "That's pretty much how it happened."

Marion sighed. "Was anybody hurt, Jones?"

"No," Henry straightened. "He held his own quite well, actually."

"And you?" she drew nearer the bars. "Indy, are you okay?"

He sidled up closer to her, exhaling heavily. "Yeah, I'm okay."

She wasn't convinced, not in the least. "Jones?"

Henry lifted his head and looked around the cell, seeing but not seeing. "He doesn't want me, Marion."

"Oh stop it."

"He doesn't want a father."

"He does want a father, Jones! Christ, are you so blinded by your own insecurities that you can't see that? He's been desperate for a father ever since Colin died. He practically collected them for Christ's sake," she spun away from the bars. "Oxley was just one of many replacements he took over the years. He had one at nearly every school he went to, one at every garage he worked at…he wanted every single father he could get."

"Yeah, well he doesn't want me."

"Of course he doesn't want you!" Marion said. "You think any of those men ever told him to brush his teeth? Wash his face? Get good grades? When to go to bed? When to wake up? You think any of them cared if he didn't come home on time or didn't come home at all? You think any of them ever spent any amount of time worried sick about the person he was or the person he was going to become? None of them did, Jones, because none of them were his father, not a single one of them. They couldn't replace Colin, and they certainly can't replace you."

Henry couldn't bear to look at her, couldn't bear to see the strength in her eyes, the belief uncompromised that he could be the father he wanted to be. His next breath was a shaky one and the next was more of a gasp.

Marion pressed herself against the bars and reached for him, setting her hand on his arm. Her fingers tightened on his bicep. "You are the first real father he's had since Colin died," she told him. "You don't get used to that overnight, Jones, I don't care what family you come from. And he does want you; he just has to come to terms with all the paternal crap he missed out on."

They shared a look. Henry melted in front of her eyes as they gleamed optimistically in the dim light of the cell. He leaned close to her and placed his head on the bars next to hers, relishing the feel of her lips on his cheek, just being there with her.

"A good father doesn't get into a drinking contest with his son, does he?"

"That's a no," Marion said with a nod.

"I guess we both got a lot to learn."

"Yes, you do, but if there was one thing the Joneses were good at, it was learning from their mistakes."

He smiled and kissed her.

Marion grinned as they pulled apart. "Of course, it did take you thirty years to finally marry me, so I can't say much about your timing."

"Only took one night to get the kid, though," he replied with a wolfish chuckle.

"Well, you have got me there," she patted him on the shoulder. "You all right, Jones?"

"Yeah," he replied.

"Then let me go pay the nice officers and get the car pulled around. You drag your son's drunken butt outside."

"_Our_ son," he corrected her.

Marion laughed. "You do the crime, you do the time, Jones – you think I'm gonna be the one tucking him in tonight or getting him out of bed tomorrow morning?" she shook her head. "He's all yours."

"You can't just pin this all on me!"

"Actually, you'll find I can – you may not have started that 'little' disagreement this evening, but you certainly didn't do much to finish it."

Henry pointed in his son's direction. "You heard it from the horse's mouth – we were bonding."

Marion let out a chuckle as if that was the funniest joke she'd ever heard. "You know, there are some things you Jones men just know, but in other areas, you have so much left to learn." She looked back at her son. "Mutt, honey, you okay?"

He waved at her, this time much less exuberantly. "Great, ma, just great."

"I'll see you two in a minute," she said, and walked back to the door.

The detective greeted her on the way back. "Still married?" he asked.

"Yes, detective," she replied proudly. "Unfortunately, I'm stuck with those two."

* * *

Mutt sank into the back of the cell. Thankfully, or unthankfully, he hadn't puked yet, leaving his reputation in tact but his stomach churning inside him unsteadily. It was a perfect addition to his simmering rage and sickeningly deep heartache he assumed would only get worse as the night wore on, especially if his mother actually intended to leave him at the mercy of Indiana.

_And the evening started off so well_, he mused, which, in retrospect, was probably a sure sign that something was going to start. There always was a calm before the Jones's storm, an unsettling moment of such familial perfection it was only a matter of time before something broke. All three members maintained such a tenuous grasp on idealistic normalcy, particularly he and Indiana, making even sitting down to dinner an excuse to rise to blows, which they very nearly had on several occasions.

Yet something about that night made Mutt angrier at his father than he ever had been. Looking back, he could see the dissolution of their relationship (such as it was) over the months since the wedding inch by inch from various altercations. Indiana was too strict, he was too irresponsible. Indy wanted him to go to school, he wanted to work. Henry wasn't his father, Mutt wasn't his son. It all just poured out of the both of them, spurred by malice and frustration because the one just didn't seem to understand where the other was coming from or could but just didn't care.

The evening really had started off well. Heck, the whole day had been a dream. Mutt had gotten up on time, went to all five of his classes, earned the highest mark on a paper with one of the hardest profs marking it, and got all his homework done immediately after getting home. He and Indy had an hour conversation when the good doctor got home from work. An hour without one raised voice, shouted curse, or death threat, just good, old fashioned, father-son bonding over an animated discussion about myth and mysticism in Ancient Egypt.

Utopia lasted until dinner. That's when all hell broke loose. Not all at once, of course, but in a gradual, downward spiral. The moment they started talking about graduation, he knew he should have bailed, but he couldn't help himself. He had been asked to take a look at a Harley Davidson over lunch that day, by Professor Johnston, no less, the be-all-end-all of professors in Mutt's opinion, and could barely contain himself.

"I think I'm just going to pick up where I left off, probably get a job with at Jack Morrigan's place and work my way up from there."

"'Work your way up from there?'" Henry quoted him incredulously.

"What's wrong with working up, Indy?" Marion asked him.

"Well, gee, Marion, it is the only way to go when you're working at a garage."

"And what the hell is wrong with working at a garage?" Mutt demanded, hands tightening on his silverware.

"Nothing, because you're not going to be working at one."

"Oh, so what, you get to tell me what I'm going to do after I graduate now too, is that it?"

"Until you get a job? Yeah."

"What do you call working at a garage?"

Indiana rolled his eyes. "Until you get a _real_ job? Yeah."

It was all pretty par for the course, really, and what followed was no different. It existed in Mutt's memory as nothing more than raised voices and the clatter of dishware. Henry demanded Marion back him up. Mutt couldn't believe she would take his side. Marion answered both their arguments by throwing the remnants of dinner to the floor.

The glass shattering sent the room into a temporary silence. Marion shot them both a fierce glare. "Clean up your own God damn mess for a change," she told them, and then stomped out of the room.

And then there were more raised voices, this time hurling accusations from one about what the other was doing to Marion, what they were putting their mother/wife through. Somehow, amidst all the chaos, the suggestion was made that one of them leave (Mutt was fairly certain it had been him. It would have been easier to say to the man who abandoned his mother at the alter eighteen years ago than to the son who had stuck by her). The alcohol had dulled his recollection of the exact moment he decided to leave, but it didn't matter. The outcome spoke for itself. He had left through his bedroom window, walked his bike about half a mile down the road before gunning engine and taking off. He wouldn't have even stopped at the Alcove if he hadn't blown all his money on getting the bike fixed a week before, but the place was small, unpopular, had pool tables and willing patrons, so he figured the odds of being found while he won some dough were in his favour.

Until Jones found him. _Indiana Jones_, he thought, and dropped a fist against the concrete floor.

"Hey, kid," his father roused him from his thoughts. Mutt glared in response. "You alright? Can you walk?"

"Been doing it since I was one," he shot back, and jumped to his feet, gasping in surprise when the world tilted sharply off its axis. It began to spin in opposite directions across his vision, swirling like a mess of wet paint at the mercy of a child's fingertips. He felt his stomach bob in his throat like a cork and his body sag backwards like a marionette pulled off its strings, fully ready and willing to hit the deck and stay there. But like most decisions he made lately, it was openly denied by his father who caught him on the way down.

"You been doing it this way since you were one? 'Cuz if that's true, kid, you had a poor teacher."

"Yeah, well at least he was there!" Mutt snapped, and threw himself out of his father's grasp. He hit the concrete floor with a small, "Ow," and a large grimace. A recently tenderized part of his skull connected with the sharp edge of the bench, leaving him in absolute stillness and silence for a minute as he regained himself.

It was long enough for Indiana to slump down on the bench above him. "We're a real piece of work, aren't we? You and me?"

"Speak for yourself," Mutt snarled, running his hand over the back of his head. "I was doing just fine until you showed up."

"You were about to get your brains bashed in."

"Yeah! After you showed up and got all paternal on me, AGAIN."

"You were in a bar hustling tables – somebody had to!"

"I was trying to leave town, just like you wanted me too!"

Indiana rolled his eyes. "Is that what you really think? That I wanted you to leave?"

"If the boot fits…" Mutt mumbled. The notion sounded stupid, even to him. He decided to explain himself. "You've got the bar set so high for me. Did it ever occur to you that I might enjoy fixing motorcycles? That it just might be what I want to do for the rest of my life?"

"Fixing motorcycles isn't a career."

"Maybe not for you," he said, "But it could be for me. I wouldn't mind if it were for me. I'm not you, I'm not your dad, being a professor doesn't agree with me – not the work ethic and definitely not the wardrobe." Mutt gave a half-mock-shiver. "Doing things, fixing things…that kind of stuff agrees with me."

"And you don't think archaeology is doing things?"

"Don't go putting words in my mouth, pops. I'm talking about sitting around in a classroom. I'm talking about pushing and publishing papers. I'm talking about academic discourse, wearing four-piece-suits, drinking brandy, and bragging about how I'm the shit's shit of scholars 'cuz I got fifteen degrees and a house in the 'burbs."

He heard his father give a small laugh. Mutt looked up. "You making fun of me now?" he demanded.

"No," Indiana ran a hand over his face tiredly. "No. You just…you sound exactly like me when I was your age."

"Get out," Mutt replied.

"I'm serious."

"No, I'm serious. Get out. You wanted to fix motorcycles?"

"Well, no, not that. I never wanted to be a professor though, that's for damn sure."

"What changed your mind?"

Indy sighed. He hung his head a little, and then raised it again. "I realized that everything I wanted to do relied on getting the degrees. Everything I wanted to be was through those doors. I just had to give myself over for a few years…"

"What, like 12?"

"More like 15," Dr. Jones corrected him, glaring at his son, "And then I was able to do whatever I wanted."

Mutt shook his head. "That's fifteen years I don't want to spare, pops. I'm already sick of this shit…stuff. I don't want to spend another day there more than I have to. And that's not the point! I should be able to choose what I want to do for the rest of my life! Regardless of how your father raised you and his father raised him and so on and so forth, it's my life."

"My father didn't raise me," Indy drew a shaky breath. _I raised me_.

"Same difference," Mutt retorted. "My life, my choice. Can we at least agree on that?"

Henry pursed his lips as a wave of anger and betrayal ran through him. He only wanted what was best for the boy. Why couldn't he understand that?

_Maybe he does_, his inner voice of reason informed him, a voice that sounded conspicuously like Marion's. _Maybe you're the one that needs to understand_.

_God damn it Marion_, he cursed. Why was she always right?

He released the breath he hadn't realized he was holding and nodded. "Fine," he told Mutt, "You're right – it is your life. But you're getting your Undergraduate."

"Fine," Mutt said, "But if I take a part-time job at Morrigan's, you're not allowed to stop me."

"Fine," Indy replied, "But if your marks start slipping, the job goes."

"Fine," the younger Jones sneered.

"Fine," the elder snapped and narrowed his eyes on the boy. Just three hours ago he had been speeding through town, knuckles clutching the steering wheel so tight they went white. He could have counted his veins through his skin he was so scared. Another hour before, he was about ready to come to blows with his delinquent son…again, and a short half an hour prior he had found himself in the back of a cruiser with his very inebriated child, nursing the same knuckles as they throbbed from several well thrown punches just moments before. The stress of the evening just seemed so unimportant now, nothing more than wasted time.

"So help me, kid," Indy began, "If you ever run off like that again…"

"You'll buy the next round?" Mutt suggested.

Indy had to laugh at that one. "You know, I think your mother's right. We do have a lot to learn."

"Mom's always right," Mutt shrugged. "Get used to it, old man."

"Dad," Henry Sr. corrected him.

Junior rolled his eyes. "Dad."

**So far I've been ending these chapters like I'm breaking asparagus - wherever they seem to conclude naturally is where I've been leaving them. For those of you interested in seeing Indy's remedy for a hangover, just leave your comments. :) I'll see what I can do.**


	7. Cerebral Hemispheres

Disclaimer: The characters and concepts in this story are the property of Stephen Spielberg, George Lucas, and their fabulous affiliates at Lucasfilm and Paramount. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.

Summary: A family's more than blood and bones. Part 7: Mutt's date doesn't go exactly as planned. WARNING! Mutt/OC.

Author's Notes: This is a response to Geolina Bartilonee's request to see the aftermath of the date, but like the date itself (as you will see), my chapter didn't go exactly as planned. I originally had a scene with just Mutt and Indy dialogue, which I may still post, but I wasn't fully convinced it was the best way to relay the subject matter. So, I started freewriting…and then I kept freewriting. Behold, the longest chapter of the fic, people – all 10 pages and 7000 words of it. This is also the first chapter I've done from first person perspective: say hello to Mutt vision!

This chapter is Mutt/OC. You have been warned.

Today's anatomy lesson has been brought to you by the cerebral hemisphere: an organ so nice, it grew inside you twice!

* * *

-Cerebral Hemispheres-

To say that this wasn't my finest hour would be an understatement: this was, by far, the worst moment of my life. Yes, even worse than getting captured by Russians; even worse than having my bike abandoned at a Peruvian cemetery; not quite as bad as having mom and the Ox kidnapped but nothing quite compares to that experience and I don't think anything ever will. Still, tonight? Yeah, definitely worse than the whole Russian captivity and abandoned bike thing.

Let's recap, shall we? Because you're going to want to hear the whole story, starting with, naturally, why I'm sitting in an alleyway in the pouring rain wearing a four-piece suit I paid good money for with a busted lip and a blackening eye. No, I'm not starring in some cheap chick film (although it would be an improvement on my current situation. At least the guys in chick films get the girls). Nobody died either, which is kind of unfortunate in this case because there is one guy I know who could use a good, long, painful death.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I'll start from the beginning.

It starts in comparative literature. There's no real significance to comparative literature. The prof's lousy and I've already read all the course material. What is significant is the girl I'm looking at, the girl you'd probably be looking at too on your way into class on your first day, hell, any day. She's not as pretty or as made up as Shelly Kittredge and her posse in the back row, but she's not gossipy, she's not simpering, and when you've got no friends and no college experience, her smile is the nicest thing you've probably seen in a long time and the empty seat next to her has your name written all over it.

Yeah, I've gone back a little too far, but you've gotta understand who this girl is to me, and that's about the best picture I can draw without dragging you to my class, which would be difficult since, after tonight since I am so not going back.

"I'm Chloe," she said to me and offered her hand. I never knew a girl who shook hands before. Most of the girls I knew were like Kittredge, and the first thing they offered to you is never attached to something above the bust line. Her handshake itself was a mystery too, all firm and strong like she wanted to leave a mark on me. Not like she did or anything. No girl had ever left a mark on me before, and no girl ever would. By the way, I'm part idiot on my father's side. Just go with it.

So, we took to talking. I found out from those ten minutes before class that she was an Arts Major, that she had probably read more books than the Marshall library had to offer, that she was going to teach when she graduated but her real dream was to be a reporter, and that she was about the most talkative thing I had ever found myself sitting by (she didn't actually tell me the last part. I figured that one out all on my own. Sharp, aren't I?). She had to run after class but flashed me another smile on her way out, one I was sure I would never see again especially if she kept running her mouth the way she did on day one. Besides, Shelly Kittredge was walking back to my seat, and I forgot about Chloe Weaver and her smile remarkably fast for a guy who swore it was love at first sight.

Shelly Kittredge, as I have previously established, was interested in me for reasons purely different from Chloe, and I have to admit, I understood where she was coming from completely. She wasted no time on introductions. She knew what her mouth was good at, and, as she relayed to me, leaning over the desk with her mouth hovering next to my ear, she would be very, _very_ happy to show me.

Half-idiot, remember? Yeah, keep telling yourself that. It starts becoming more of a defense than an insult, let me assure you.

So I cut classes with Kittredge (what did I tell you? Half-idiot is an understatement for me). She sidled right up close to me on the Harley, hands wrapped around my waist, fingers draping my…you get the picture. She decided to show me the city hot spots, being that I was new and all and she was such a Good Samaritan. She took me around to the diners and introduced me to her friends, who liked me immediately, by the way. She showed me the movie theatre and the drive-in, the red light district, and then, just when I thought the tour might be over, she pointed a devilishly red nail towards the hill and, running her lips _and tongue_ along my ear lobe, said, "Lover's Lane."

I must have gunned the engine just a little too quickly after that because we were suddenly not moving. In fact, we were doing the exact opposite of moving. We had come to a complete stop and, wouldn't you know it, so had the bike.

At that particular moment in time, that particular moment in time was dubbed, "Not my finest hour." I had Shelly Kittredge on the sidewalk tapping her foot and smoking a cigarette while I fumbled with the stubborn fuel line on my bike, praying to any and all supreme deities in existence that just this once, just this once the bike fix itself. In retribution for cutting class, though, God saw fit to have the bike put up such a fight that Shelly Kittredge hitched a ride with another passing motorist and left me to work out my own problems.

Five minutes later, I heard a voice call to me from a few feet away.

"You need a hand?"

Having inherited stubbornness from both of my parents, I shook my head. "No, I'm good."

I thought the person might just shrug and walk away, but they didn't. They walked over and knelt down on the ground next to me.

She had bruised knees and nicer thighs from this angle, but I knew that smell and those hands and that nose and those eyes and that face. It was Chloe Weaver.

"You really need two people for this," she said, and set her packages on the ground, packages in this case meaning library books. Despite my protestations, she slid her hands next to mine, rubbed the oil away from the site, and began to reattach the fuel line.

It stuck, and the damn thing never stuck for anyone but me.

"You done this before?" I asked her when she pulled her hand away.

"Couple of times," she smiled, wiping her blackened fingertips on the folded edge of her socks.

"Your mom's gonna kill you," I told her.

She laughed. "Like my mom does laundry." She picked up her books and gave me a small wave. "See yah tomorrow."

I rose after her, tongue all thick and useless in my mouth, up until the point where I blurted out, "Hey, you need a ride?" of course.

"No thanks," she replied, turning and walking backward a couple paces, "Those things'll get you killed."

"You don't trust me?"

That always got them.

"About as far as I could throw you," she smiled and waved again. "Bye!"

I wish I could tell you I went home after that. I wish I could tell you that I didn't follow her for two blocks straight like a lost puppy, dragging my bike along beside me. I wish I could tell you that I hopped on and took off for home instead of offering to buy her a milkshake. I wish I could tell you that she didn't accept and that she didn't spend the next hour fascinating me with every single word that came out of her perfectly shaped mouth (my half-idiot brain thought…still maybe kind of thinks she has perfectly shaped everything). I wish I could tell you I didn't walk her home after that and submit myself to her line of questioning, that I didn't tell her my entire life story just because I was falling madly in love with her and imagining what our children might look like with her perfectly-shaped everything and my hair (we have three, two boys and a girl, and they're all incredibly intelligent and good looking and, thanks to her fully formed brain, only a quarter-idiot each).

Yeah, I wish I could tell you all that. But I can't. So I won't.

I spent the rest of the week trying to win her over. I walked her home almost everyday (except for the two days of detention I got for skipping class). I answered every single one of the questions that came out of her mouth, even those completely random and utterly absurd ones. Hell, I even let her touch my hair in the first week. I was practically proposing marriage to this girl. And wouldn't you know it, just as my grounding was coming to an end, I found out through highly deceptive methods (she told me, okay?) that it was her birthday in a week, and, more importantly, she didn't have any plans.

"No, you can't not have plans on your birthday," I told her.

"Apparently you can," she replied with a shrug.

"No, you can't, because you're having dinner with me."

See that right there? Yeah, that surprised me too.

She stopped dead in her tracks and looked at me through the decisive narrow slits that were now her eyes. "I'm having dinner with you, am I?"

"Yes, yes you are," I declared, and thought that would be the end of it, but the part of me that had already convinced me that I was marrying this girl kept talking. "And I don't mean some five dollar special at Merla's. I'm taking you out for a real dinner."

She gave a little laugh. "A real dinner?"

"Yeah. A real fancy, formal, multiple course dinner with nice plates and table cloths and candles and other…you know, fancy stuff."

Her brow lifted a little. I had caught her attention. After a moment, she gave a little nod.

"All right," she said. "What time?"

"Seven," I told her.

"Seven it is," she replied.

I swear I saw her blushing the whole way to her house.

So, seven o'clock, Chloe Weaver's birthday, I was on her doorstep looking every inch an absolute gentleman. And I rang the doorbell and thought to myself, "I have this totally under control." And then she came to the door and answered it and I saw her and everything, well, everything just went to hell. Because suddenly, Chloe Weaver wasn't this bookish, talkative girl from my class anymore, she was this absolute vision of…I don't know. Radiance sounds too flighty. And what guy talks like that? She was Grace Kelly waltzing into Jimmy Stewart's apartment in _Rear Window_. She was Ingrid Bergman telling Humphrey that she wanted to stay with him in _Casablanca_. She was Audrey Hepburn in _Roman Holiday_. She was all these actresses in all these movies that I had simply glanced at for amusement but never enjoyed, ever, I swear.

Being the most suave, articulate man on the planet, I summarized her looks into the perfect compliment.

"Wow."

She gave a little half turn and beamed. "Thanks," she shrugged. "You're pretty 'wow' yourself."

"Marry me," I said, and she said, "Okay!" and then we bought a house in the suburbs and lived happily ever after. Okay, that's not quite how things went, but did I mention that I'm sitting in the pouring rain while some other guy is off canoodling with my would-be wife? Cut me some slack.

We didn't talk much on the way to the restaurant. I was saving all my conversation for the table, because there was only so much time I could pretend to be interested in her shoes or her jewelry (see? I'm still my mother's son…somewhat). We talked about the weather. We talked about how much we had read of _David Copperfield_. We talked about the weather. All right, that's it, we're skipping ahead…

…to the part where I end up in the rain, wounded and rejected, but not crying. Hell not even thinking about crying. At all. Well, maybe a little. But only thinking about it. In the manliest way possible.

We got to the restaurant. I was going to help her out of the car, but she took care of that herself. She even took the liberty of sliding her arm around mine and letting her fingers trail over my palm. To answer your question – yes, it was the best feeling known to man. It was a feeling I expressed with my first statement to her after leaving the car.

"Nice night."

"Ummm…I guess," she replied.

We both looked up. Storm clouds were looming on the horizon. Stupid dramatic irony and poetic fallacy! Stupid literary techniques in general!

So anyways, we were inside the restaurant, waiting in line for a table, and that is about when the whole evening went to hell in a hand basket. I realized that, in my absolute, first-official-date induced stupidity, that I had forgotten the gift I bought her under the driver's seat in the car. And this was a gift that I wasn't really supposed to buy her – she told me quite clearly several times that no gifts were necessary – but I bought her it anyways because these are the things you do when you want a girl to bear your children in the future. I couldn't possibly leave it there until after dinner. Dark, enclosed spaces have incredibly adverse effects on books.

I patted down my pockets. Chloe turned to me.

"Something wrong?" she asked.

"Yeah," I replied. "I left something in the car."

"Well, do you at least want to want till we're seated so you know where to find me?"

"Honey, I've got the greatest navigational skills on the planet." Which is a total lie. I just figured Bogey would have said something like that right about now. I gave my hat to a waiter to put away and placed a hand on her shoulder reassuringly. "I'll be right back."

I stepped outside quickly and headed straight over to the parking lot. The air was almost electric. I could feel the lightning in the sky against my skin pulsating like a wild animal waiting to strike. The hair on my arms was standing up on end when I shoved the key into the lock, and by the time I realized that it wasn't the storm but suspicion making me tense, it was too late.

They grabbed me from behind; at least, I assumed it was a 'they'. I sure as hell hoped it was a 'they' too because the last thing I needed was to get jumped by some four-armed creature in a city parking lot. Luckily, they gave me a chance to get a good look at them when they slammed me up against the wall of a nearby building.

Even in the dim light, I knew who they were: Drew Larson and Drew Larson's lackeys, whose names I can't remember individually, so I had taken up the practice of numbering them one through three according to size. It was the only way to distinguish between them because, in terms of intelligence, they were pretty much on par with rocks or a few points lower.

There are only two things you need to know about Drew Larson at this particular moment, aside from the fact that he had me pinned against a wall. First, he is the biggest jerk on Marshall's campus, a fact I learned very early on strictly by word of mouth and, thankfully never from experience (for him 

more than me – I've got about twenty pounds on him, most of which is just in height). The second point, which I learned in the conversation subsequent to my capture, is that he happened to have his eye on Chloe Weaver too, though for very different reasons than I did. I can't imagine it was Chloe's charm that got him all hot and bothered when he saw us together.

"Well, lookie here, boys," Drew Larson taunted. "We caught ourselves a little lady to spend the night with. Ain't she just the prettiest little thing."

Sniggering all around. I did a little sniggering myself from how lame he was.

"Sorry, to disappoint," I shrugged as best I could caught between a wall and a wall, "But I'm not into girl-on-girl relations."

I winked at him. I think that's where the blackening eye came from, though who was responsible I'm not entirely sure.

Drew had me by the collar and raised his fist. I didn't even bother to wince. It wasn't worth it for the size of his hand.

"You think you're fucking funny do you, Jones?" he gave a little chuckle and lowered his fist. I assumed he was trying to be threatening, but it was hard to tell considering I didn't feel threatened in the least. "I thought I was just going to have my boys beat the snot out of you when you came out, but…" he laughed girlishly. I tried to suppress the urge to do the same, "I gotta admit. It's going to be a lot more fun to have them beat the crap out of you _and_ get to spend the night with Chloe."

"You leave her out of this," I warned, which is how I got the broken lip, this time from Drew.

He released me back to his hounds and strode back towards the restaurant. They held off on beating me. He wanted me to see him win. He wanted me to see him walking back to my date with Chloe Weaver, victorious.

Of course, he didn't see me thinking about all the stuff I was going to do to his boys while he was inside. He didn't see me planning my escape, my brilliant, thirty-seconds-or-less escape that left One-through-Three moaning on the ground and me rushing back in to save the damsel in distress with birthday gift in one hand and a fist for Drew Larson in the other.

He had just barely stepped into the restaurant when I unleashed all hell on them. Two punches landed Three, the smallest of the group, in a bloody, semi-conscious mess on the ground. I regained my stance and faced down the other two, fists up and ready.

"Come on," I urged them.

Thunder rumbled across the sky. It was like a Bob Kane comic – I was freaking Batman in that moment. They didn't even know what hit them as the rain started to fall. I just kept punching until they fell over, a strategy that effectively ended the fight about five seconds ahead of schedule.

I gave them each an extra kick in the stomach and listened to their groans. "Assholes," I said, and rushed back to the car.

I tucked the book under my jacket, locked the door, and slammed it. Pocketing the keys, I shot one last look over my shoulder at the three unmoving heaps, then spun around and ran as fast as I could through the storm to the restaurant. They couldn't kick me out for being wet, could they? Not when I had a damsel in distress to save. That was just un-literary. Chloe herself would be on their asses for that.

I looked up and stopped dead in my tracks. "Chloe," I breathed, and stared, dumbstruck, at the sight in front of me. Staggering from the restaurant was Drew Larson, and tucked under his arm in her little white birthday dress was Chloe Weaver.

At least, I'm pretty sure it was Chloe Weaver. It certainly looked like her in the pouring rain. Okay, so I'm not entirely certain it was her, but the restaurant was pretty much all black tie from what I could see. Chloe was the only white spot amidst all of them, a little light shining in the darkness.

For the first time in my life, I didn't say anything. I dropped onto the curb of the tiny alley running the length of the parking lot and just sat there, watching my date run off with her real knight in shining armour.

I guess this is where you guys came in: me, alleyway, pouring rain, busted lip, blackening eye. I don't think I mentioned the book clutching to my stomach, but there it was, crushed by my ironclad grip brought on by the cold of the rain and the rejection. What did she see in him anyways? What could he possibly have told her to get her to run off with him in the middle of the night? To leave me here, by myself, bleeding? Or maybe that was the plan all along, nothing more than a cruel joke.

The lightning crackled and forked across the sky. There wasn't really any point in sticking around, but the last thing I wanted was to show up at home looking like this. Mom and dad would be all sympathetic and apologize, wondering why their son is so pathetic he can't even manage a dinner date. All I really wanted was just to be left alone.

There was a swish of fabric and a clatter of heels, and when I looked up, a white blur moved past me like a zephyr to the parking lot. It stopped several feet away and stared into the darkness, ignoring the rain as it splattered into her little white birthday dress and all through her perfectly styled hair.

My heart skipped a beat. And then she turned and my heart stopped completely, because there she as in all her immaculate, Grace Kelly-ish glory – Chloe Weaver. True, there was a giant, purple stain working its way across the lower hem of her skirt and her face was a little flushed, but it was her all right. I'd know that smile with my eyes closed.

She breathed a sigh of relief and, approaching me slowly through the driving rain, finally saw what the punks in the alley had done to my face.

"Oh Henry," she said.

"Oh, it's nothing," I shrugged and straightened. I may have been sitting in an alleyway in the pouring rain but that didn't mean I couldn't look as macho as possible doing it. Besides, the chicks love the whole tortured hero look nowadays.

Chloe lowered herself onto the pavement. I tried to stop her. "You're going to ruin your dress."

"Drew Larson already did that," she said. "Red wine all down the front of it. My mother's going to kill me."

She pulled her gloves out of her handbag and used them to wipe away the blood from my face. "I thought your mother didn't do laundry?"

Another smile. "You remember that."

I shrugged. "I remember everything you say."

Yeah, that was cheesy, but if she ever asked me about it, I could always tell her it was my head injury talking.

I changed gears to spare myself the tension of the moment. "What happened to Drew?"

She sank onto the curb next to me with a sigh, running her hands over her arms. "I kicked him."

I just stared at her. She giggled. "You kicked him?"

"I kicked him," she nodded, "Really hard." After a small laugh she added, "In a really, really tender area."

I stared at her in awe for a moment, suppressed the urge to cringe for Drew, and turned away, shaking my head. I should have known, I decided. I should have known she wasn't some damsel in distress waiting for me to rescue her. I should have known she'd never fall for Drew.

"Anyways," she shrugged, "He hit the waiter and knocked the wine all over me. The manager saw and heard the whole thing. He ordered that Drew leave the place. I saw him walking out with Shelly Kittredge just as I was heading for the ladies room. When you still hadn't come back, I started to get worried, so I came out."

"Shelly Kittredge?" I asked.

Chloe grinned and looked at me. "Turns out it's her birthday too."

"You're kidding." She shook her head. I looked back out at the street. "Well that's…"

She nodded. "Yeah. That's pretty much that."

I looked back at her. She was absolutely soaked through. Her dress had lost all of its bounce and was now pasted to her legs like a second layer of skin. She didn't wear enough make-up for it to run down her face, but you could see the mascara collecting around her lashes. Her curls were ruined and hung in long, flat strands down her back and shoulders. But looking at her looking at me in the pouring rain in a rat infested alley next to one of the nicest restaurants in the city was, by far, the best thing I had seen in a long time.

And then I noticed that she was shivering.

"Oh, geez," I said, mentally kicking myself several times more than was absolutely necessary. I started pulling off my coat.

"Don't, it's okay," she protested.

"No, it isn't. We're sitting outside in the pouring rain."

I handed her the jacket. Yes, handed her. It still hadn't occurred to me that the chivalrous thing to do would have been put it over her shoulders in a perfectly sensitive but still emotionally aloof fashion, like I had several other coats hidden on other parts of my body and wasn't freezing to death. Unfortunately, it only took a couple seconds more for the rain to reach my skin, and by then we were both freezing, because she was still trying to straighten out the coat without getting water on the inside.

"Well, fine," she said, finally adjusting the garment for proper wear, "Then we'll share it."

Had I a fully functioning brain, I might have had time to argue, but seeing as how I was cold, wet, recently concussed, hungry, and lovesick, I didn't get much in edgewise. In fact, I didn't get anything in edgewise. I didn't even realize she had said something until I noticed that she and I were shoulder to shoulder and the coat was draped over both of us.

And just when I thought the whole scene couldn't get anymore perfect, she leaned her head on my shoulder. Yes, it was cold. Yes, it was wet. Yes, it was a little uncomfortable. But I swear I was halfway to Jupiter when I got to slide my arm around her and not have to lie about why it was there.

I sighed.

"I'm sorry," I shook my head a little, "This is all my fault."

I felt her nod underneath me. _Yeah_, she was thinking, _but I was the one who agreed to this. How about we split 50/50_?

"Actually," she corrected me and my inner critic, "This is my fault. Drew asked me out for my birthday two weeks ago. I turned him down."

I raised a brow. Had she just said two weeks ago? Two weeks as in a week before I asked her out?

"I turned a couple of guys down actually," she replied.

I shrugged and coughed nonchalantly. "Why?"

She rolled her eyes, I swear she did. I could feel them rolling from my shoulder. Say what you will honey, but I wanted to hear this one.

"Because," she rolled her eyes again. I felt her playing with the hem of her skirt. "Because I was hoping you were going to ask me."

"Me?"

Dumbest. Response. Ever. She didn't seem to care one way or another though and nodded.

"God, I must have mentioned it about a hundred times." When we tell this story to our children though, she's only going to have said it once, in Cantonese, backwards, or written it as a riddle in Ancient Greek. "I thought you were going to think I was desperate."

"Well, I'm glad you held out for me," I replied, gesturing to the rain and the alley, "Because I'm a total catch."

I felt her smile. "You might be surprised. None of those other guys offered to take me somewhere nice."

"I bet those other guys wouldn't have got you caught in the rain though."

"Well, you have me there," she laughed. "Then again, this has to be one of the nicest times I've had getting caught in the rain."

I looked down at her…well, her head, anyways. It was kind of difficult to see her face when she held it at such an awkward angle. My mind drifted back to earlier in the evening, getting ready, when dad gave me the requisite pep-talk all fathers are required to give their sons during rites of passage into adulthood. He told me that the true measure of a man is never how he starts things (although, even you gotta admit, I started things pretty well tonight). Anyways, the true measure of a man is never how he starts things, but how he ends them. I was looking at Chloe's head, arm wrapped around her waist, and I found myself wondering if this is what my dad was talking about, if this ending was a good measure of my being; if he, looking at me in this moment, would have been proud of the person I had become because of all this.

I was just seconds away from reaching a conclusion when Chloe shifted just a little. One of her hands fell on my leg, the other into my stomach, onto the gift I had pinned to my body.

"Oh, right," I said with a nod and pulled it out and into full view. "Happy birthday."

"I thought I told you no gifts?" she replied.

"Yeah, well, dinner didn't go exactly as planned. Consider it a consolation prize."

She took the package from me and held it in her hands, running her fingers over the wrapping paper. Yes, I wrapped it. Me. Personally. No help from mom at all. Except on the edges. She turned her eyes back to me for a moment and held my gaze like I was the greatest person in the entire universe but she couldn't quite figure out why. Her mouth hung slightly open, on the verge of an epiphany she couldn't grasp or, better yet, didn't want to. "You can't verbalize emotion without destroying it," she once told me. I never appreciated the sentiment more now that I had rendered her completely speechless.

She smiled and looked back at the gift, fingers still trailing over the wrapping paper.

"You ah…you gonna open it?"

"It's raining."

I shrugged. "I'm wet, you're wet, it's wet, we're all wet."

She rolled her eyes again. "If you insist," she said, nudging me a little with her shoulder. I've never been happier to be nudged before in my life.

Her fingers pulled open the edge of the wrapping paper and then tore open the folded halves to reveal the back of the withered hardcover. My eyes were on her face the whole time. I already knew what she would find. It was more important for me to see her expression when she saw what it was too.

Holding it close to her chest protectively, she tugged the rest of the paper free and turned it around. Her expression was everything I hoped it to be and more. All the tension from her features just relaxed. Her mouth and eyes dropped open in surprise and she lifted a shaking hand to her mouth, pressing her fingers over her lips to hold back whatever wanted to come pouring out at that moment. Her other hand remained on the book's cover, fingers moving over the faded remains of an embossed title. She was memorizing it, drawing it into her, trying to vanquish the nagging notion that this was a dream.

_Alice in Wonderland_. Her favourite book. Her dad used to read it to her before she could talk. She used to tell the kids in her class she could read novels at age three and would sit there, flipping pages, reciting it verbatim because she knew it so damn well. It was one of those stories that just stuck in my head and kept replaying itself, along with all those other stories she told me. I may have been severely concussed when I admitted that I remembered everything she ever told me, but I wasn't lying. I know – this whole scene is kind of oozing melodrama. But if someone just gave you one of the first editions published in the twentieth century of your favourite book, you'd probably be looking a lot like Chloe was and, if you're the gift giver, feeling a lot like I am right now.

"It's uh…a little worn…" I tried to warn her, but the book was more than a little worn. Itwas falling apart. I suddenly felt very ashamed. I knew I should have gotten her a new edition copy. Christ, I was an idiot. I was a stupid, good-for-nothing…

The train of thought stopped. Chloe had tears in her eyes. She looked from the book to me to the book and then back to me, holding her gaze on mine.

I tried to appear nonchalant. Inside, I was screaming. "Happy birthday," I said.

She didn't thank me. I wondered why. Her silence worried me. Her tears worried me. Her everything worried me. Had I done something wrong? Oh Christ – I probably scared her away. Jesus…

Thankfully, what she did next quelled my fears, cemented my judgment, strengthened my resolve, and warmed me to my very core.

She kissed me.

No, not kissed. 'Kissed' is a gross understatement for what she did. Chloe was composing an opus with her mouth and mine – nothing but her lips and her tongue and her teeth and...

I stopped thinking. I didn't want to think. If I thought, it would be in words, and I didn't want words for this. I just wanted the feeling of her in the rain.

* * *

We opted out of dinner. We bought drive-thru and ate in the car and talked about everything except what the other was wearing. I never did get to make a comment about her shoes or her necklace, though I could probably tell you every detail on them. We stopped in Bishop's Park and watched the storm over the lake while Chloe recited her favourite parts of _Alice_ to me and read others aloud because, "You can't paraphrase Louis Carroll. It's sacrilege."

By the time I dropped her off at home, our hair was dry, and it was well past the time we had expected to finish. The thought didn't bother her for a second though. She spent a minute and a half saying good bye to me, another half a minute telling me how much fun she had, and about ten seconds expressing her desire to do it again sometime. Of course, by 'saying' I mean…well, you know what I mean. Hey, if you think that's impressive, you should have seen my half of the conversation. I managed to put Stewart, Bogart, and Peck all to shame in two minutes.

I watched her as she walked up the path to her house, _Alice_ clutched to her chest the whole way. I watched the soft sway of her skirt and hair, the small limp she was nursing from her heels, the slight incline of her neck as she glanced back at the car on the road, back at me sitting in the car. I watched her disappear into the darkened house and finally breathed the first real sigh of the evening.

I had finished, I thought to myself proudly. I, Henry "Mutt"-not-Walton Jones Jr. Jr., had finished an evening from hell with dignity and grace (for lack of a better, manlier word) and an unspoken but very real promise to see the girl again. I was Batman. I was Hugh Heffner. I was Al Capone. I was all of these men only way better, way younger, and way more handsome.

Mom and dad were still up when I got home. I could see the lights on from the front window and their silhouettes beyond, wandering between the kitchen and the living room. I would have been able to hear them if they were fighting. No, this looked like one of those romantic evenings at home together they were having all the time now. On the bright side, it gave me hope that mom wouldn't notice my eye and lip. On the down side, it meant that I would probably get dragged into some heart-to-heart with them about how the night went, and, as much as they deserved to know about my upcoming wedding and what I expected of them as grandparents to Ashleigh, Dante, and Louis (yes, our children had names now. You wanna make something of it?), this wasn't the time to do it. I was ready to go upstairs, lay back on my bed, and think about all the explicit possibilities for our next date.

"I'm home!" I called to them, as if the door opening and closing behind me wasn't a big enough clue. I barely had enough time to kick off my shoes when I heard mom coming into the hall.

"How did it go…JESUS! Henry! What happened to your eye!"

It had taken longer for Larson's lackeys to jump me than it did for my mom to get to the door. I could see dad hovering in the arch behind her, watching patiently, never one for interfering with my mother when she was being a nag (one of his poorer qualities, I assure you).

"Seriously, mom, its fine," I said, trying to wave her away.

"Well, what? Did you two have a fight?"

"No, no, a guy and his friends jumped me in a parking lot. It's fine. Everything was…perfect." I kissed on the cheek to placate her and walked towards the stairs, waving to dad as I went by. "Hey pops."

My mother's shock did not escape me. She turned towards me with an eyebrow raised sharply. "That's it?" she asked.

"Yep," I replied. "We had a great time. I had a shaky start and a rough middle, but it ended really, really nicely."

I shot a glance at my dad. He glanced back and smiled wryly. He knew what I was talking about.

Mom clearly didn't. "Okay," she nodded, "I'm missing something here. Is this anything I want to know?"

"No, mom, its okay," I nodded. "Things went really great, that's all."

She nodded, all the while casting a suspicious glance between me and dad. "All right," she said, still unconvinced. "Are you going to bed?"

I gave a half-mocked yawn and nodded. The perfect ending to a perfect evening.

"Night mom," I waved, "Night pops."

"Where's your hat?"

I stopped short on the stairs. Dad's question had caught me totally off-guard. Hat? I wasn't wearing a hat. Well, not now, anyways. But I had been…

"You just had to go and ruin this for me didn't you?" I asked.

Pops laughed under his breath. He and my mother retreated into the living room. "Good night," he said before adding, "Junior."

I trudged up the last of the stairs. He was so uninvited to the wedding.


	8. Stomach Part Two

Disclaimer: The characters and concepts in this story are the property of Stephen Spielberg, George Lucas, and their awesome affiliates at Lucasfilm and Paramount. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.

Summary: A family's more than blood and bones. Part Eight: Indiana's thirty second hangover remedy. A sequel to 'Liver'.

Author's Notes: I was supposed to take a day off from writing…and then this happened. Oh well - I suppose there are worse ways to spend one's Saturday night/Sunday morning. Happy reading!

* * *

-Stomach Part Two-

"What the hell is that?"

"That," Indiana eased himself into the chair across the table from his son, "Is that greatest hangover remedy ever created."

Mutt raised a brow as high as it would go, and then tried to raise it several degrees higher but couldn't manage it without sending another wave of excruciating pain through his skull and down his spine. He settled on a look; a single, flat look in his father's direction.

"You have got to be kidding me."

"No kidding around here, Junior. Now drink up – the sooner all that goes down the hatch, the sooner you and I can get to cleaning the shed."

"Wow, gee dad, now I can't wait to toss back…whatever the hell this is."

He flicked the glass of amber liquid for emphasis and made a face. The ripples had sent more of that God awful smell into his nose, leaving him on the verge of vomiting…again. Since waking up that morning (if what he did could be called 'waking' considering how closely it resembled dying and going to hell), he had two false alarms with vomiting, neither of which would have ever made it to the bathroom because he was too busy wallowing in his own brutal agony.

It was a fitting aftermath, he supposed, to the night before. He had never drunk competitively, least of all with someone whose alcohol tolerance was as high as his father's. Seven shots of whiskey, seven shots _in rapid succession_, and Indiana was reaching for not only the next round, but the two after, ready and willing to see his son under the table before he even started slurring his words.

And saw him under he did. Mutt didn't even remember the cops showing up or the trip to the station, only his mother's sudden arrival and the ensuing conversation with his father. He had held out the hope that he might still be drunk when he woke up, but alas, no dice. He had woken up in the sixth or seventh circle of hell with the promise of progressing through the remaining circles courtesy of his overly chipper father throwing open his bedroom curtains with a happy, "Rise and shine, Junior."

He never realized how much he hated sunlight before. Sunlight and dad. Sunlight, dad, and strange beverages. _Oh hell_, Mutt thought. _I hate this whole stinking day._

"Speaking of whatever the hell this is, what the hell is this? It smells like shit."

"Watch your mouth," Indy warned him, "And don't worry about the smell. It tastes worse."

Mutt rolled his eyes in thanks. "So what is it?"

Indy leveled his gaze and raised a brow. "You really want to know?"

The amber liquid bubbled slightly and Mutt felt his stomach lurch again. "No," he replied glumly. "Yes…maybe…oh, for Christ's sake, just tell me. I'd rather know."

"You gonna drink it?"

"Is it going to work?"

"Like you wouldn't believe," Indy said with a nod. "Thirty seconds, tops, and you'll be back to normal. Heck, you'll be better than normal. You'll be able to take care of that shed yourself."

"Yeah, don't push it, pops. Mom said we got to share that punishment."

"Can't blame a guy for trying, can you?" the elder Jones laughed lightly. "Now are you going to drink it? Because either way, we're starting on that shed in ten minutes."

Mutt rubbed his face tiredly, feeling another wave of pain coming to crescendo. "Yeah," he said as it peaked. "Yeah, I'll drink it. Now what the hell is it?"

"It's a mixture cod liver oil, soda water, and the digestive juices of a…"

"Okay, okay, I've heard enough," Mutt took the glass in his hand. His stomach churned in anticipation for the blow while his nose absorbed the delightfully rank odour. _I hate my life_. "Cheers," he said, and raised the glass in mock salute. Plugging his nose, he put his lips to the glass, tilted it back, and began to swallow.

And oh God, what a swallow it was, warm and bitter and sour and unsettling and ugh…Mutt could feel his esophagus tightening with every gulp. His Adam's apple quivered, contemplating a strike when the ordeal was over, or before, whatever made Mutt's life more of a living hell than it already was.

The bottom of the glass couldn't come soon enough. He slammed the glass down onto the table and forced the last of the vile fluid down before his stomach could hurl it back up and onto the table.

Indy looked at his watch. _Thirty seconds in counting_, he thought, and watched the hand count down. It was a better view than that of his son across the table, slowly turning green.

"Thirty seconds, right?" Mutt asked hopefully. He had one hand pressed against his stomach and the other on his neck, ready to clap over his mouth in case he started to hurl.

"Fifteen left," Indy informed him. He lifted his eyes for a brief second. "You hanging in there?"

"Just keep your eyes on the clock, old man."

"Dad," he corrected him. "Ten seconds and counting."

"Dad," Mutt swallowed hard, face twisting with revulsion from the sickening taste in the back of his throat. "This is going to work, right?"

"Five," Indy began counting down, "Four, three, two, one." The elder Jones smirked and looked at his son. "What did I tell you?"

"That it would work."

"And…?"

"Yeah – no, definitely didn't. If anything I feel worse."

Indiana lifted a brow slightly, thinking to himself. He was sure he got the measurements right. It was two parts cod oil, a teaspoon or so of soda water, and one part...or was that the other way around? He could never remember correctly.

"Must have mixed up the ratio," he concluded, rising from the table and picking up the glass. "I'll go make up another batch."

"I'll go cough up the last one," Mutt replied, and made for the bathroom as fast as his legs would carry him.

* * *

Have an awesome Sunday everybody!


	9. Hippocampus

Disclaimer: The characters and concepts in this story are the property of Stephen Spielberg, George Lucas, and their affiliates at Paramount and Lucasfilm. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.

Summary: A family's more than blood and bones. Part 9: On the first night in the Jones house, Indy discovers that Mutt might still need him for some things.

Author's Notes: I've been suffering from a bit of a block when it comes to _Anatomy_ lately, but I think I covered everything I wanted to with this part. I was originally going to do it in typical third-person narrative, but once I started, I found there was just so much Indy in it, I may as well make it first person. So, chapter seven was Mutt-Vision; chapter nine is Indy-vision!

Today's anatomy lesson is brought to you by the hippocampus, home of your long-term memory.

* * *

-Hippocampus-

To say that I missed out on a lot would be an understatement. I missed out on almost twenty years of the life that should have been mine from the beginning. That's a good portion of my marriage and my son's entire existence. That's a million memories I'll never get the chance to make with the boy, my boy; my son. I would never hear Henry Jones III's first words or see his first step. I would never be able to teach him how to ride a bike or throw a ball. Granted, I'm not even sure my own father could recall doing those things with me, but I imagine he regretted it in the end and now, so do I, perhaps more so because of dad's reluctance to be a traditional parent.

I should be feeling happy, I know; happy that I finally found the family I had been yearning for. For the first time since I bought this home, it's a full house. Marion, first-and-last-love-of-my-life Marion Ravenwood, is asleep in what has always been her side of my bed in my…our bedroom. And right next door to her in what used to be a guest room is Henry Walton Jones III, oh sorry – _Mutt_; our son, my son, my own flesh and blood son, sleeping under the same roof as me. And not in some Peruvian hostel at the mercy of Russian militants. One room over, one door down, where he should have been sleeping since he was born.

I should be smiling. I should be upstairs sleeping along with them. I should have been sent to bed with pleasant dreams instead of the waking nightmare of regret. So I find myself downstairs staring into the glowing remnants of a once roaring flame, reflecting on everything I missed out on, all the things I never saw and could never hope to see again. Who was that boy – and make no mistake, he's still a boy – asleep in the bed upstairs? What made him happy? What made him sad? What did he like to read? What did he like to do? There are so many questions in my head, so many inquiries that will go unanswered or worse, have to be explained by Marion or Oxley or someone else who had actually been there to see my son – _my_ son – grow up and become the person he was today. I'm never going to get to look back through my memory and see those things happening; I hadn't been there. I'm always going to have to rely on someone else's recollection to get me through.

_And you've got no one to blame but yourself, old man_, the voice in my head tells me. The words send icy pains stabbing through my chest, and not because of the tone. Because it's true: I'm here tonight in front of what is left of a fire because of my own stupid decisions, my own bullheadedness, and no matter how many times Marion says she forgives me it won't change a damn thing, because no amount of forgiveness is ever going to give me the last twenty years of my life back.

A floorboard creaks in the hall and I'm immediately on edge. I turn quickly towards the door to find Henry…oh, right _Mutt_ standing in the open archway looking tired but surprised to see me there.

"Sorry," he yawns and combs his fingers back through his hair to straighten it, something he would need to do if he just got it cut like I told him to. "I thought you'd gone to bed."

"I couldn't sleep," I shrug. No need to lie about that.

He nods understandingly. "Yeah, me neither."

"Is everything all right?"

I must have sounded too eager. The kid gets defensive. _Get a grip on yourself, man_, the voice tells me. _He's twenty, not two_.

"Yeah, everything's great, you know? It's a nice place you got here, pops…dad," he rubs his forehead as if the word were the byproduct of some faulty cerebral wiring instead of his casual grasp of the English language. _Pops_, I almost roll my eyes. My own father would have killed me. I just give him the evil eye. Junior shrugs off his embarrassment quickly though. "It's just…new house, you know? New room. New bed."

_New dad? _Part of me wants to suggest, but I didn't think I could bear the awkward response to that right now, not with the way my brain's been working tonight. I give him a slight nod. Been there, done that before. Not recently, but he doesn't need to know that. No need to get him all riled up at…what time was it again? Geez, past midnight. Definitely don't want to pick a fight at this hour. Marion would never let me hear the end of it.

"Well, you're welcome to sit down if you want, Junior."

The word's out of my mouth before I can even stop it. To be honest, I don't mind it. It slips nicely off my tongue. I wonder if dad felt the same way, if he even thought about it or if the name was simply instinct. I used to think it was the former, but the past few days have shown me that it's more than likely the latter. I see Mutt and there it is in my mouth waiting to fly out at the first available opportunity.

He's too tired to care. You can see it in his eyes. The past few days have been a bit of a whirlwind for him. I wouldn't blame him if he passed out on the floor. He rubs his eyes again and staggers over to the couch, taking a seat on the arm rest before one of my new, patented dad looks has him sliding onto the couch.

And then we sit in silence. I haven't the first clue as to what to say to this kid. It was easy when we were in Peru. There were always things to talk about. Take us back on home turf and suddenly we're shrugging our shoulders, pretending we're anywhere else but in each other's company.

"The house creaks."

I look up from the fire towards him. Henry repeats himself. "The house," he says with a slight toss of his shoulders, "It creaks. Kept me awake."

"Uh huh," I nod again. I try to hide my skepticism and manage to. He and I both know that's not the real reason he can't sleep. Just in case he caught on though, I decide to change the subject. "You want a uh…glass of water or something?"

"I can get it," he shrugs and starts to get up. I put a hand on his shoulder and shake my head.

"I'll get it," I say, and head for the kitchen. The kid sinks back onto the couch behind me, mumbling something about a crazy old timer. I laugh under my breath. I may be a crazy old timer kid, but I'm _your_ crazy old timer now.

I try not to think of what happens when I get back into the living room while I'm filling him a glass. Best practice has taught me that I should have some conversation ready with me for when I get back, but I'm at a complete loss as to what to say. It's late. We're both tired. We should both be in bed. Why don't we talk about that? Or better yet, why don't we fix that?

I set the glass on the counter for a minute, run a hand through my hair. It's just a glass of water, I try and tell myself. It's just a glass of water. It's sitting on a couch. Nothing I haven't done before or can't handle. The fact that it's my kid out there doesn't change anything.

"Christ," I mutter. Of course it does. It changes everything. I lean partway over the sink and take a minute just to breathe. I close my eyes and wonder. If I had stuck around, if I had spent the last twenty years getting glasses of water and sitting on the couch with him, what then? What would I be saying to him then? We'd probably be talking about school then; school or girls or books or that damn Elvis music.

I pick up the glass with another sigh. I don't have those years. I'm on my own in there. Of course, that just strengthens my bullheaded resolve. I never run away from a challenge. How do you think I got Marion back in the first place? Hell, how do you think I got her in the first place? Offspring had to be easier than that.

Of course, me and my useless worrying takes away my chance at quality father-son time for the second time in twenty years. I get back to the living room to find Junior slumped against the back of the couch, still sitting upright, but fast asleep.

The hand holding the glass quivers a little. _So much for conversation_, I think, and stand in the doorway for a moment, again, not quite sure how to react to something like this. Memories of my father leave me little basis for comparison. I never would have fallen asleep on the living room couch if I knew he was there to find me. That had to stand for something, I suppose.

I set the glass of water on the table. I couldn't even think of what Oxley might do in this situation. Wake him up? Get him upstairs to bed?

"Oh for God's sake, Jones," the Marion-esque voice in my head tells me, "Oxley isn't here."

"So that just leaves…"

She shrugs. "You're on your own."

That's what I was afraid of. Being alone has never scared me before, but now that I'm the only father in this kid's life, I'm terrified. I'm frozen up. Getting glasses of water is enough to leave me shaking.

Okay, so where do I begin here? He's asleep. I shake him awake, get him back to his room, problem solved. But then that lingering doubt returns, that anxiety. He already said he was having trouble sleeping in the room. Maybe I should just leave him here, let him sleep on the couch tonight and work on getting him comfortable tomorrow?

But there's the doubt again. He sleeps like that he's gonna be sore when he wakes up, and as much as dealing with him when he's cranky gets on my last nerve, it's more the thought that my son's gonna be hurting that gives me the will to act. I head to the hallway closet, grab the first pillow and blanket I can find lying around in it, and get halfway to the living room when I realize that what I've taken isn't nearly as comfortable as I first though. I head back, rifle through my small collection of bedding and find something more acceptable before bringing them back to him.

I put the pillow down at the opposite end of the couch and hang the blanket off my arm. There's really no easy way to do this, is there? I reach for his shoulders and stop myself, haunted by the thought of him waking up, finding himself in my hands, and recoiling. It wouldn't surprise me. It wouldn't make me feel any better about this though.

Taking a deep breath, I brace myself for the blow. I put one hand on his shoulder and held it there for a minute, testing the water. When he doesn't stir, I place my other hand on his opposite arm and start to slide him down the couch back. His head lolls against my arm but his eyes remain shut. He's down for the count, and I don't think I'm able to be more thankful for that fact than I am now.

I take a minute once he's horizontal, letting my hands linger on his shoulder and bicep. He's still so small. I never realized it. His height gives him the illusion of bulk, but kneeling here and being this close to him tells me otherwise. Eighteen years may have made this kid tall, but he still has some growing to do.

He shifts in his sleep. I jump back a little but manage to keep my panic at bay enough to keep a hold on him. For a moment, I think he's caught me, and I immediately start raising my defenses, but he slips back to sleep just as quickly as he rose, and I sigh out of relief instead of exasperation this time.

I hook my hands under his arms and pull him up on the couch until his head hits the pillow. The effect is immediate: Henry turns over on his side, hooks an arm around it, and tugs it to his face, burying his head into it as deep as it will go. He exhales and relaxes, sinking deeper into sleep.

For the briefest of moments, I'm dumbstruck by how young he looks. My mind had been building him up into a man, but seeing him laying on the couch clutching the pillow to his head shaves away all the bravado. He's just a kid – big eyes and curly hair, tuckered out and huddled up on the couch, scared of a creaky old house and the monsters under the bed. Eighteen years and he still needed something from somebody; someone to tell him to cut his hair, to stand up straight, to dress properly; to sit up with him when he can't get to sleep, get him a glass of water and then tuck him in when he can.

"Tuck him in," I almost start to laugh. I'm tucking my son in. Marcus and Sallah would be having a fit at this. Dad would be…

"Your dad would be proud," Marion's voice assures me.

I draw his legs up and onto the couch, laying them flat against the cushions. He doesn't seem so tall to me anymore, and I don't think he ever will again. Junior seems like an overstatement with the way he's sleeping. I'm getting all eighteen years I missed in this one moment, and it doesn't feel awkward at all. It feels amazing.

The blanket settles easily over top of him. He nuzzles into it like a cat in a sunbeam and then settles too, asleep. I follow the motions by instinct, tucking the edges under his feet and legs, arms and torso. It only takes a few seconds for him to get antsy and shuffle again, kicking himself free as fast as he could.

I roll my eyes, "So that's how this is going to be." He seems to nod as he gets comfortable again. His hair is coming loose above his ears making his curls even more pronounced, and he looks younger and younger the longer I stare at him, if that's even possible. I kneel down by his head and smile at him.

"Guess I still got some time with you huh, Junior?" I ask.

Henry rubs his face against the pillow. "…t's Mutt."

"Mutt," I reply without bothering to hide my disdain. Guess my first order of business is getting that nickname out of common usage. Second – the hair.

"We got a lot of great memories ahead of us, kid," I give his head a final pat and stood up, surveying my work. Henry was tucked in and ready for bed, and I'm ready to head there myself.

I yawn and head for the stairs. "Harold Oxley – eat your heart out."

* * *

**Happy reading and writing everybody!**


	10. Hair

Disclaimer: The characters and concepts in this story are the property of Stephen Spielberg, George Lucas, and their marvelous affiliates at Lucasfilm and Paramount. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.

Summary: A family's more than blood and bones. Part 10: It's not the years, honey: it's the mileage.

Author's Notes: To my beta – thank you. It's amazing what an extra pair of eyes can do for a piece and yours definitely worked wonders on mine. Your comments also made my day. I'm glad you enjoyed it! Thank you!

With regards to the chapter itself, I'm back to Indy and Marion for this one. Everything else is pretty self-explanatory. Enjoy!

* * *

-Hair-

It wasn't the first time Marion had found a gray hair on her head, and it certainly wouldn't be the last. For some reason though, it was the first time a gray hair had ever made her ache a little inside.

She left it where it hung in front of her face, separate from the others that had grown in over the years. It wasn't any different from the lot of them really; still the same, matte gray of a hair that had been slowly overtaking her scalp for the past five years. Yet for some reason, this one felt different. For the first time in her life, Marion was beginning to feel old and not just the regular-old either. Marion felt dowdy, frumpy, dated; the kind of old that occupies a worn piece of clothing or overused antique. That kind of old.

Hands on her hips, she crossed her eyes and stared hard at the hair. _Why haven't I felt this way before?_ she wondered. It wasn't as if she had gotten this way overnight. Then again, wasn't it? She hadn't felt this old yesterday or the day before. Just now. Just right now. Discovering that hair had tipped the scales of her self-esteem and sent her plummeting into the throes of self-pity, and it had all happened so quickly she scarcely had time to reflect on the situation at hand.

Not that there was much to reflect on. This was just another average day-in-the-life-of for Marion Jones. There had been laundry to do, dishes to wash, dinner to plan, groceries to buy, a husband to visit…

Her eyes narrowed. _Yes_, she thought_, a husband to visit – a husband and his brand new secretary!_

Marion turned away from the mirror angrily, lowering her eyes from the bright, gray streak in her line of vision. She wasn't a jealous person by nature, neither was she suspicious of her husband's affections for his new associate. Still, the very thought of Catherine Moore, the very notion of her, shook Marion to the core. The statuesque redhead came to represent, in Marion's mind at least, everything she had ever come to loathe in the universe, including that damnable gray hair!

"You must be Mrs. Jones," Catherine had said pleasantly when Marion arrived at her husband's office that afternoon. She rose from her desk like Aphrodite from the ocean, all six-foot-something of her body followed by several inches provided by the stiletto heels of her shoes. She was slender but curvaceous, an enviable silhouette only perfected by the pencil skirt and blouse she wore in her ensemble. She was the type of woman who turned simple tasks into works of art: walking became a dance, standing became a tableau. Catherine Moore was who women wanted to be and men wanted to be with.

"I'm Catherine Moore," she offered her slender, smooth hand to Marion. "I'm your husband's secretary."

For all her self-confidence and unabashed ego, Marion hesitated in that moment. She felt her hands at her sides, old and withered and unclean, and couldn't find the courage to meet Catherine halfway, at least not immediately. Just as the awkwardness of the moment reached a fever pitch, she finally took the woman's tiny hand in hers and gave it a single, stern shake as if she were trying to break it.

Catherine, for her part, was all smiles despite nearly having her hand torn off. "He just walked into a quick meeting with the dean of languages, but I'm sure it won't take long. Would you care to sit and wait?"

Temporarily transfixed on the young woman's face, Marion could only muster a nod at first, but finally managed to communicate that she would wait. Catherine took the liberty of assuring her it shouldn't be more than a few minutes, but by now, Marion wasn't listening. She was too busy wondering just how someone managed to produce something as sickeningly beautiful and nauseatingly charming as the young woman in front of her.

"You must be Mrs. Jones," Marion said to the bathroom floor in a high pitched, nasally squeal of a voice. She smirked dejectedly. "Yep," she nodded, "That's me – Mrs. Jones. All forty-seven, gray-haired years of me."

She turned back to the mirror quickly, facing her reflection with a sigh. In the dark corners of her memory lurked her younger self, a raven-haired beauty of sixteen, maybe seventeen years old. That was the Marion she had always fancied herself to be, even after age and motherhood stripped her of those breasts, those hips, and that body in general. Now, those corners were occupied by a redheaded demon, a slinky, snake-like figure chiding snidely,_ "Mrs. Jones_."

The sound of footsteps on the stairs roused Marion from her thoughts. They were heavy footsteps, thundering, definitely Indy's. Running her hands through her hair several times to hide the offensive gray streak from sight, she exited the bathroom just as her husband disappeared into the bedroom.

"Indy?" she asked the empty hallway. No response. Not the usual salutation she was awarded when the good doctor returned home from a long day at the office. Putting her inner turmoil on the back burner, Marion strode calmly and confidently to the bedroom and, with a soft knock, let herself in.

"Indy?"

His groan was the only response she received. Eyeing his silhouette on the opposite side of the bed curiously, Marion finally realized the source of her husband's anguish. He was sliding his blazer and dress shirt from his shoulders at a snail's pace, arms sluggish and creaking from age.

_Guess I'm not the only one time caught up with today_, she mused, and slid into the room. Indy winced and grunted, drawing the blazer over his elbow painfully. A ghost of a smile overtook Marion's features as she eased onto the bed next to him.

_Now where have I seen this before?_

Wrapping her fingers around the collar of his shirt, Marion began to pull. Indiana let out a troubled grunt.

"No," he shook his head with another grunt, "I don't need any help."

"You do," she corrected him and finally managed to pull the clothing free of his body. Trailing her fingertips over the garments lightly, fighting laughter at the irony of the moment, she cast a longing glance back at her husband. "You're not the man I knew twenty years ago."

He looked at her, still wincing. For a split second, she saw him as he had been, dark-haired and dark-eyed with a nine o'clock shadow working its way across his stiff jaw. When Marion blinked, the image yielded to the present, but only so many of the features actually changed with time. He was still the man she fell in love with all those years ago. Why did her reflection have to change so much?

As if he had heard the question, Indy smiled and said, "It's not the years, honey: it's the mileage."

Marion's heart soared under his gaze. It was the same gaze from lifetimes before, back when they were falling in love for the first time, the second time…God, every time. They could be in a crowded room and that gaze would find her and take hold of her. It was Indy's way of saying everything his mouth couldn't; that she was beautiful at any age, and that, beyond words and thoughts, he loved her completely.

She felt her cheeks redden and changed the subject. "How far did you take yourself today?"

"Far enough to reconsider that statement," he winced, shifting uncomfortably on the bed. "I was helping clear out some of the old store rooms."

Something in his spine popped, leaving Indy wincing again. Marion chuckled despite herself and reached for his legs.

Twice in a lifetime, he protested the action. "No, Marion, please…"

"Lie down," she said, heaving his stiff legs onto the bed.

"Look, I don't need a nurse. I just need a minute. Marion…"

"No buts, Jones," she warned.

He glared at her, but his ability to be threatening was diminished by the glasses sitting halfway down his nose.

Marion grinned at her patient. She set his legs onto the bed as gently as she could before sliding towards the head of the bed where she fluffed the nearest available pillow and held it towards him.

"Sit up," she said.

"Marion…"

"Sit up," she said again.

Indy rolled his eyes but conceded. His expression spoke of pain in every measure and volume, and Marion was sure that something else in his spine had popped as he moved. Quick as she could, she slid the other pillow under him and eased him onto it.

"Now," Marion put a hand on her hip, "Where doesn't it hurt?"

"Marion, just leave me alone, please?"

"Here?" she ran a hand over his knee.

"Ow! Yes! I mean no!"

"Well God damn it, Jones, where doesn't it hurt?"

He tried to keep his anger under wraps. He just wanted a minute! Was that too much to ask? Pointing a finger towards his elbow, he announced, "Here!"

Marion leaned forward and kissed the uninjured area tenderly.

Indiana's mind reeled in sudden recognition. He stared into his wife's face, fighting the urge to match her smirk as he lifted a hand and pointed to his brow.

"Here."

Her fingers curled over his glasses, tugging them from his face. Easing herself next to him, Marion placed another delicate kiss by his eye.

Indy thought carefully about the next. He ran a hand over his cheek, ignoring the deep groves time had carved into his skin. "Here's not too bad," he told her. She seemed to agree, and kissed him again.

They stared at each other for a moment, lost in the moment. Indiana raised a hand to his lips.

"Here…"

He never got to finish. Marion's lips brought him to a halt. His final spoken word was swallowed up in the silence of their embrace and vanished, taking the years along with it. With a sigh, Indiana eased into the pillows beneath her and she pulled away, surveying her work. Indiana was resting comfortably underneath her, finally relaxed.

The redheaded figure in her mind faded from view, and Marion knew that, inside and out, she was the one Indy had fallen in love with in the beginning and the only one he wanted in the end. She had years _and_ mileage. How could Catherine Moore compete with that?

"You know, I think the pain's subsiding in a few other places…"

Marion tossed her hair, every black and gray strand of it. She matched her husband's mischievous grin. "I'm all ears, Jones. I'm all ears."

* * *

**Happy reading everyone!**


	11. Womb

Disclaimer: The characters and concepts in this story are the property of Stephen Spielberg, George Lucas, and their wonderful affiliates at Lucasfilm and Paramount. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.

Summary: A family's more than blood and bones. Part 11 – Nine months is a small price to pay.

Author's Notes: I apologize that it's been taking me so long to get these chapters written. My schedule is pretty hectic right now. I'm going out of town next week, and the week after that I'm back at school. Bear with me! I promise neither _Anatomy_ nor _Sleeping Dogs_ is going to land itself in fanfiction limbo. It's just going to be a little while before I find the time to write consistently. Thank you for being patient! I hope this instalment was worth it.

I'm kind of on a first-person stint right now. This time it's Marion's turn.

Sincere thanks to my beta, who checked this over despite her schedule. Your corrections and concerns are always appreciated, as are your comments. Thank you very much for taking the time to read this through.

* * *

-Womb-

"Okay," I tossed the dish towel on the counter, unable to ignore my pouting teenage son slumped on the bottom stair in the foyer of the house any longer. He had stared enough holes through the door for one day; I was worried he might get a migraine or sprain some of the muscles in his face he was focusing so hard. Approaching him, I finally posed the question I knew he had been waiting so desperately for. "What's wrong?"

"It's nothin'," he shrugged, every inch a greaser to the bitter end. The look of petulance on his face must have just been there for decoration or something. I folded my arms across my chest with a sigh. _So we're going to play hard ball_, I thought, rolling my eyes at the classic Mutt response. _Okay, I'll play hardball._

"Nothin' looks a heck of a lot like somethin' nowadays, pup," I took a step next to him and gave my head a slight toss as a gesture. "Scoot over."

"I don't want to talk about it."

_Which is clearly why you've been sitting in the foyer, in my ear shot, making as much noise as you possibly can for the past half hour_, I wanted to scream, but I suppressed this, and my eye roll. Mutt was hard enough to work with when he was riled up over someone else. I didn't need him getting riled up with me.

"I never said I wanted to talk, I said scoot over," I gave his calf a little kick with my foot. "I wanna sit."

The look of indignation on his face was priceless. I wished I had the camera. But the look of hurt was painfully evident underneath it all; it always was with him. One glance into those eyes of his and you knew something was the matter, something deep.

He shrugged his shoulders so sharply he might have cut holes in the universe. _All this to make it look like you're being forced_, I nearly laughed, but managed to hide my amusement. _You've been waiting for this since you stormed in the door, mister. Don't go pinning it all on me._

With a slight smile, I sank down next to him on the bottom step. He had left the front door open, I noticed, which was good. I needed to keep my mind occupied while we played this little game of his.

The game didn't have a title, but it didn't need one. It was something that was as old as the hills for him and I; well, at least as old as his disposition anyway, which I suppose was brewing about as he was growing inside me. When Mutt has something on his mind, we go through these same exact motions every single time. For a moment, neither of us says anything. We stare into space and I twiddle my thumbs as he mulls things over a little in his brain and finds the right words to describe the situation at hand. It take a minute or two of mulling for him to realize there are no better words than just words in general, that I'm his mother and don't need all the bravado, that he can just be whoever he wants to be around me and I won't think any less of him for it. And then, just when I think I'm going crazy from counting the number of tiles on the floor or making shapes out of the shadows on the wall, he finally breaks and just starts spilling his guts.

Today, I'm lucky. Beyond the front door, it's summertime. Bright sunlight and a perfectly mowed lawn (after days of reminding Indy that it needed cutting; he finally got the message when I _accidentally_ left a stack of bedding on the couch yesterday morning). It was a perfect picture of summer bliss, and it was mocking the storm clouds billowing around my son. So long as I focused on that, the silence didn't bother me. I could have sat for two days just waiting for my son's patience to finally wear thin, which it inevitably did a second later.

He broke the silence with a little stomp on the floor. "It's Chloe, okay? I just…she can…I don't…GOD! She can be so selfish sometimes!"

Well, that's news to me. My eyebrow rises ever-so-slightly, enough to show that I was interested but not so interested that I would pry the answers from him. Cornering Mutt when he was in a mood like this was just asking for a tantrum, and I was not in the mood for that, not at all.

Inside, I was a little more interested. All Mutt ever talked about was how amazing Chloe was, how incredible she was, how stupendously, awesomely, brilliantly, beautiful and wonderful and superlative-in-general she was. I had been meaning to have the puppy-love talk with him eventually. I had been running through the words in my head, emphasizing all the important parts (like how it eventually comes to an end), but it looked like my time was up a lot sooner than expected. Worse, Mutt had found out for himself; which may have been the Jones's favourite way of learning, but I'm his mother - I have to hold out hope that particular genetic trait is receding.

Mutt finally noticed my eyebrow. "Okay, okay," he leaned forward and looked me straight in the eyes. "I met up with her at the library, you know?" Yes, I did. 'Library' becomes a redundant fact when discussing Chloe. "Anyways, we were walking over to the arcade to meet up with Tony and Claire, and we get to talking about the future and what we're going to do with the rest of our lives."

My heart sank through the floor, all the way to China. I didn't like where this conversation was going. I didn't like it one bit.

"We're talking about the usual stuff, right? She wants to move to New York, become some big shot editor. I want to own a garage, maybe travel a little, do a little treasure hunting, you know, if Pops ever gets off campus." Midterms – Indy's favourite time of year. "And then we get on the subject of marriage and kids, and that's when she tells me she doesn't want to have kids and that if it came down to a choice between a job and a family, she would take the job."  
My eyes widened a little on that one, I think, partly because he managed to say that all in one breath and partly because of Chloe's confession. Those were some big words coming from a little girl, even a girl who used as big of words as Chloe. "She said that?" Mutt nodded and continued.

"I mean can you believe her? A choice between a job and a family? She didn't even hesitate! Not even for a second! A job is more important than anything else to her. More important than kids, more important than a future…more important than us? Than me? You know, she said we oughta break up if I felt this way?"

"Well, do you feel that way?" I asked seriously. He shifted uncomfortably under my gaze and refused to so much as glance in my general direction. "I don't know how I feel," he wanted to say, but he did know, I could tell. His eyes were telling me everything language couldn't, just as they had always done.

"I just don't understand how a job could be more important than anything," her finally muttered, "Especially m…us."

It was the briefest of sounds, the faintest hint of a consonant that didn't belong. I watched his lips close around it and drone the sound. "Mmm…" like he was appraising a taste. "Mmm…" like he was humming a tune. "Mmm…" like he was trying his hardest not to say, "Me."

I nodded, understanding. God bless Mother's Intuition and Abner's Brain. I would never have been able to learn Jones-speak without them. "This isn't about Chloe, is it?"

His silence was the only answer I needed. Everything else fell into place. If things had happened the way they were supposed to twenty years ago, we wouldn't be having this discussion right now. Chloe's decision would be something he could handle. As luck would have it though, things didn't go according to plan way back when, and every now and then, Mutt reminded me that as happy as he is, he still has a ways to go before the hurting stopped.

"You know, Mutt…"

"This isn't about Dad."

"It isn't?"

"No, it isn't," he declared, but for a moment, all he could do was consider what he had just said. "Okay," he finally relented, "It's not entirely about Dad."  
It was about his dad, but I managed to keep this assessment to myself.

"I still can't believe she said that," he added.

"Well, I can understand it," I told him softly. "I may not know Chloe very well, Mutt, but it's obvious that she cares about you. And I think she genuinely wants you to be happy. Don't you think it would be more selfish of her to keep those dreams to herself? To lead you on into a relationship you might not want to be in?"

Mutt finally managed to meet my stare. He knew where I was going with this. He was a smart boy. He could read between the lines as well as anybody. What he knew he couldn't express, of course, not in words, but in those moments I saw the realization dawn inside him, and I felt my heart lift a little, rising back from its trip through the centre of the earth minutes before.

I placed my hand on his shoulder. He didn't even flinch. I had him there, my little boy; my little, wounded, baby boy. Okay, not quite 'little' and not quite a 'boy', but most assuredly not a man. I'm his mother; I would know.

"I think you're very, very lucky to be with someone who knows what she wants in this world, and even though what she wants is a little unorthodox, at least now you know."

He shook his head. "I hate knowing. I'm so sick of knowing. I wish I could just go back to not knowing. Ignorance was bliss compared to this."

I rubbed his shoulder, sighing deeply. Even I couldn't deny that.

Mutt brought his head to rest in his hands and stared at the floor, lost in thought. I kept watching his eyes, waiting for a sign that he was ready to let me in again. _Just a little longer, _I urged him mentally. _Just one last time, and then you can go have a private breakdown in the garage_.

"I really wanted it to work," he commented noncommittally. He could have been talking about anything – a broken record player, a new invention, his bike…anything else except _this_. "I really, really lo…"

The word died in his throat, and I was left to wonder which four letter 'l' word he was about to utter.

"Should I end it? Is that what I should do?"

It was…is impossible to describe how lost he sounded. I can only find the words because I remember them from two decades before. I remember discovering them the week Indy disappeared. I remember repeating them in my mind over and over for the next two weeks. I remember them sharpening to blades as my stomach started to swell. I remember the pain of their abuse as our baby took shape and came to life within me. I remember every wound they left on me, every scar that still remains.

But to this day I cannot remember the pain as clearly as I could then. Not after Colin, and certainly not after Mutt. In his own miserable way, Indy had given me happiness as a parting gift. Nine months was a small price to pay. Afterwards, I came up with another mantra, a better mantra, one that gave me the strength to carry on with the Jones of a son I'd been given.

I ran a hand down my son's shoulder and repeated the mantra to him. "There's still time. There's always time."

"But what if time doesn't change anything? What if she still feels the same way?"  
"Then that's for her to live with," I told him. "You have to do what's best for you, Mutt. If she happens to be it, well, I guess you know what the answer to the question is."

"But what if she's not?"

His eyes were back on me. My little boy's big brown eyes. Wide eyes. Beautiful eyes. The eyes that gave me the mantra I just gave him. I tried to hide my smile and failed. Nine months was a small price to pay for my son's eyes.

I patted his shoulder. "Then she doesn't know what she's missing."

* * *

Happy reading everybody!


End file.
